THE GREATEST BOOKS 
nsf THE WORLD 



LAURA SPENCER PORTOR 




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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE GREATEST BOOKS 
m THE WORLD 



THE GREATEST BOOKS 
IN THE WORLD 

INTERPRETIVE STUDIES 

BY 

LAURA SPENCER PORTOR 

WITH 

LISTS OF COLLATERAL READING HELPFUL TO 

THE STUDY OF GREAT LITERATURE 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

^!)e Bitcrj^itie pte^^ Cambciti0e 

1913 






COPYRIGHT, I9T3, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published October iqi3 



#^ 



.A357598 



TO FRANCIS POPE 



For all books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour 
and the books of all time. — Ruskin. 

One is sometimes asked ... to recommend ... a course of study. 
My advice would always be to confine yourself to the supreme 
books in whatever literature. . . . You will find that in order to 
understand perfectly and exactly any really vital piece of literature, 
you will be gradually and pleasantly persuaded to studies and 
explorations of which you little dreamed when you began, and 
you will find yourselves scholars before you are aware. — Lowell. 



CONTENTS 

Introduction xi 

I 

I. Our Heritage 1 

II. On Judging of Great Books . . . .9 
m. Great Writers as Interpreters ... 15 
IV. The Writer's Message 20 

II 

V. The Odyssey 23 

VI. The Divine Comedy 47 

VII. Goethe's Faust 82 

VIII. The Arabian Nights 113 

IX. Don Quixote 146 

X. Pilgrim's Progress 185 

XI. The Book of Job 216 

III 

Xn. Suggestions for Study 245 

Xm. Suggestions for Further Study . . . 253 
XIV. The Comparative Study of Great Books . 261 

Lists of Collateral Reading 273 



INTRODUCTION 

When the average sincere person, wishing to 
inform himself concerning the world's master- 
pieces of literature or of any other art, seeks for 
books which will help him to gain the desired 
information, he finds a mass of works written 
by experts, treatises too voluminous and detailed 
and technical to be of help to the lay reader; or 
he finds a mass of "get-art-quick" books in 
which, in a perfunctory, guidebook fashion, he 
has pointed out to him the masterpieces he is 
expected to admire, with dates, a few guidebook 
facts, and now and then an anecdote or two as a 
means of lightening the general dullness. When 
he comes to look for a volume that shall treat 
seriously but not too seriously, interestingly but 
not too lightly, of the masterpieces of literature 
or sculpture, or any other great art, he finds such 
volumes, like angels' visits, very few and far 
between. Indeed, while there are a great many 
excellent text and reference books and a great 
many learned treatises on all the arts, and a 
goodly number of more or less light treatises on 
literature, I know of no volume which, while 
dealing particularly with the masterpieces of 



xii INTRODUCTION 

literature, yet gives the reader at the same time 
a clear and connected survey of them in their 
relation both to literature and life, which will 
enable him to know why these are called master- 
pieces — and to accept them as such for himself. 

What most of us need, I take it, is a book, 
sound in its treatment, by means of which we 
may readily and intelligently inform ourselves 
concerning the world's masterworks of litera- 
ture, not as mere detached forms but as part of 
a great whole, a great art whose history and 
development are inwoven with the history and 
development of mankind; a book not dogmatic 
but one which rather will help us to discover and 
interpret some of the beauty of these master- 
pieces and will lead us to form our own opinions 
concerning them. 

If the present volume, meeting this need, shall 
become a help to those interested in its subject; 
if by this means it shall add somewhat to their 
enjoyment of literature, I shall not regret that 
it is not called a scholarly, but rather, in the 
broadest sense, a popular discussion of the 
world's greatest books. 

A further word is perhaps needed concerning 
the author's choice of the books here discussed. 

From time to time there have been attempts 
to make a fairly comprehensive list of the "best 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

books of the world." Eminent men have con- 
sented to name what they beheve to be the five, 
ten, twenty, or one hundred "best books." Such 
lists are generally more fruitful of dispute than 
they are convincing. 

It is not intended in the present volume to 
make or urge any arbitrary selection of "best 
books." The masterpieces chosen are seven in 
number. In each case they are books concerning 
whose greatness there is no dispute; all of them 
are widely admitted to be among the greatest 
books in the world. 

Nor is the order in which these books stand in 
this volume intended to relate to their degrees 
of greatness. Each is studied merely with a 
view to a better understanding of the book itself, 
with the idea of discovering and realizing some 
of the reasons which underlie its lasting great- 
ness. 

In the present choice of famous great books, 
one is notably absent. But to those who may 
wonder why the Bible is not among the books 
chosen, it will, on reflection, be clear that it 
could not fairly be included in the present list. 
The Bible is not one book, but a collection of 
many books; not one exaanple of genius or reve- 
lation, but practically an entire literature. That 
it would not as a whole fall in with the general 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

plan of study followed in this volume is obvious. 
Even a small portion of it, the Book of Job, 
which takes rank with the greatest books, is here 
dealt with all too briefly and inadequately. 



THE GREATEST BOOKS 
IN THE WORLD 



THE GREATEST BOOKS 
IN THE WORLD 

CHAPTER I 

OUR HERITAGE 

It is a truth which needs no arguing that one 
who is with all certainty to inherit a vast for- 
tune should be carefully and wisely trained 
with that fact in view; should be taught no little 
concerning the value and use and meaning of 
wealth; should be taught, not less, a respect for 
that importance and influence and place among 
his fellows which his inheritance will one day 
give him. He should, we concede, be taught ably 
to handle his own fortune, and warned against 
leaving the investing and spending of it in the 
hands of others who cannot have his interests 
sufficiently at heart. He should, with all this in 
view, be taught discretion and trained in judg- 
ment, so as to be able in time to make his own 
wise choice between good and evil, between wise 
and unwise. Thus his future will lay an admitted 
obligation even on his early life; and, from the 
first, he shall be trained in body and mind and 



2 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

somewhat, no doubt, in spirit for that larger 
responsibility which the years will deliver into 
his hands. 

Yet in a curiously similar case — similar save 
that the fortune in this case is not merely vast 
but incalculably vast — many of us are not yet 
awake to the necessity of training the individual 
in such a way that he may be a wise, not an 
unwise, inheritor. And if it be pointed out to us 
that that individual is yourself or myself, we are 
perhaps so little trained to a knowledge of our 
vast possessions that our first sensation is one of 
surprise; and our first mental act is to assure 
ourselves that here is some mistake, — we are 
not heirs to an immense fortune, this we would 
swear to. We are, rather, the mere average man 
or woman without present or future prospect of 
great wealth. 

This is what you and I would very likely 
answer, and not only we but thousands of others 
if we were suddenly confronted with the fact 
that we are inheritors of fortunes to which that 
of the wealthiest of men is, when all is said and 
done, a mere pittance. 

I say "fact," for here is indeed no metaphor or 
supposition, but a fact plain and simple. Each 
newcomer in the world, as he is reaching years 
of maturity, becomes gradually aware, or should 



OUR HERITAGE 3 

become aware, of a great wealth, a vast inher- 
itance bequeathed him by the race of which 
he is a scion; a stupendous fortune accumu- 
lated through countless ages and intended and 
offered for his enjoyment and benefit, here and 
now. 

Not only do most of us come to our inheritance 
unprepared; but a great number of us are not 
fitted, even to the last of our days, either to 
understand, first, what our fortune may be, or 
to use it wisely for our own benefit and the 
benefit of others. 

Most of us, it is true, gain at one time or another 
— generally when we are young, and perhaps 
on windy, sunny mornings in spring, when the 
blood runs red — a mysterious, exhilarating 
sense of riches all about us, no matter how 
worldly poor we ourselves may be; a subtle, 
persistent sense of the world's unlimited, inex- 
haustible riches; but few of us think of them as 
our own particular inheritance, and few of us 
set about claiming them and using them as 
Siegfried claimed and forged and used that magic 
sword long kept from him. 

We hear talk of the "mines of Golconda," of 
the "wealth of the Indies," of the "gold of King 
Midas," of the "hoards of the Nibelungs," but 
these stand to us as fables. And all the while. 



4 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

over yonder beyond our intelligence and our 
schooling, lie riches which the toiling hands of all 
the men and women in the world shall never 
carry away, nor the devices of the minds of all 
men ever wholly spend or exhaust. To these 
treasures, so little appreciated by us, we hear, as 
we go on, frequent reference. We stumble on 
vague knowledge of them as we read books or 
meet with cultivated people, or view a great 
city in the dawn, or come for the j&rst time under 
the spell of memorable music. In occasional 
touch with richer lives than our own we gain 
hints of countries we have not explored, hear 
speech of certain Princes of the Earth whose 
provinces are strange to us; we catch the names 
of Homer, Phidias, Raphael, Michelangelo. We 
hear mention of the "Odyssey," of "Hamlet," 
of the dramas of iEschylus, of Sophocles; of 
the Madonna "Granduca," of the "Parthenon," 
the "Sistine Chapel," "Nike of the Sandal," 
of the "Taj Mahal," and "Temples of Kar- 
nak." We are envious of a knowledge of these 
things, we wonder about them, speculate about 
them, would gladly inform ourselves concerning 
them, if we could; we perhaps deplore and are 
a little ashamed of our provincial lives, and of 
our stay-at-home intelligence which has so rarely 
put to sea. There are all these things to know; 



OUR HERITAGE 5 

they are known to more traveled minds than 
ours, and we are in the main ignorant of them. 

But as a matter of fact these are only a small 
part of the riches left to us in fee simple. 

We are possessed of a vast fortune, that in 
time becomes clear; but we have not been 
trained or fitted either to the understanding of 
it or the use of it. Many of our possessions lie in 
foreign lands; but our lives speak only one lan- 
guage, as it were; or we are limited to the narrow 
province of our own experience. We are in the 
position of a man who, without previous educa- 
tion, finds himself on coming of age to be one of 
the richest men in the world, and knows not 
what to do with his riches. 

And what follows? Generally speaking either 
our wealth is locked away from us all our days, 
usurped by others better fitted than ourselves 
to use it; or, because of our dullness, our lack 
of training, we use it unwisely and with little 
taste, as that class known as the nouveaux riches 
use their newly acquired riches, with a certain 
blundering and awkwardness. Or else — and this 
is the happiest chance — there awakens in us 
a great longing to know more concerning our 
inheritance, a curiosity which will not be gain- 
said or denied. We determine to put off from 
the shore of our own limited experience, to sail 



6 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

somewhat the unlimited seas, to explore some of 
those foreign lands which await us and of which 
we have heard report. 

Generally this curiosity and this determination 
come between the ages of eighteen and twenty- 
three, although they may, of course, come ear- 
lier; and to some they do come later, entirely 
according as circumstances and environment 
hasten or retard them. This experience may be 
described as a kind of efflorescence of the mind 
resulting from an unconscious but growing 
desire to create in one's self a sort of secondary 
beauty by means of a fuller knowledge and 
appreciation of all that the world calls beautiful. 

At such a time the intelligence and the emo- 
tions may leap enthusiastically to the accept- 
ance of any great form of beauty, whether the 
form be fully understood or not. It is a common 
thing, for instance, to find the mind and emo- 
tions at such a time accepting as beautiful, and 
with an almost overwrought enthusiasm, such 
great art forms as the "Venus de Milo," the 
"Apollo Belvedere," "Tristan and Isolde," 
"Lohengrin," "Faust," etc., etc. These imme- 
diately exert an influence over us, they directly 
ajffect us, and begin already to mould us. We 
find ourselves able to talk of them; we enthuse 
over them; we feel them, so to speak; and 



OUR HERITAGE 7 

we rejoice, and believe ourselves honestly ap- 
preciative of great art; and in a measure we 
are. 

But while all this is as it should be, it is by 
no means sufficient. The influence we feel falls 
short, indeed, of that broader, less emotional, 
and more intellectual influence of all great art, 
that influence which comes only with a more 
intellectual and less emotional understanding 
and enjoyment of art. While the great and 
familiar forms that we have named rouse us and 
accomplish their purpose in us, yet we find, per- 
haps, that certain others, reputed equally great, 
fail to move us. The "Theseus" of the Parthe- 
non; the "Torso" of the Vatican; the "Three 
Fates" of the East Pediment; the "Lemnian 
Athena"; the Russian Symphonies of Tschai- 
kowsky; the "Requiem Mass" of Bach; the 
"Divine Comedy"; these bewilder us and leave 
us unstirred. We are not prepared to like these 
great forms. Yet there they are, unquestionably 
great, a very present rebuke to the slenderness 
of our knowledge. In other words, we have sailed 
the seas to some purpose, it would seem; have 
known that joy, at last, of discovering land lying 
low on the horizon; have attained to it and made 
it ours, with no little thankfulness; but there are 
still vast stretches lying in the interior of our 



8 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

newly discovered countries which 'our feet have 
not yet traveled. 

If we are to enjoy not merely some few given 
forms of art but art itself, not only some exam- 
ples of beauty but beauty, we shall have need to 
go deeper than a mere superficial and popular 
study of a few given art forms; we shall have 
need to explore and to learn to judge somewhat 
of art for ourselves. 



CHAPTER II 
ON JUDGING OF GREAT BOOKS 

It is not possible to lay down any laws to 
which the varied manifestations of beauty in life 
or art will inevitably conform; nor can beauty 
be so exactly defined that, having got the defini- 
tion by heart, we can recognize the quality by 
applying the definition. No touchstone of taste 
can be found, even by the most zealous, whereby 
we may know infallibly the great and separate 
it from the less great. There are, of course, 
many opinions to help us form our own. Many 
people before us have examined and studied our 
great art forms and have recorded their opinions 
of them; men better equipped than ourselves 
have judged and passed sentence; yet it is not 
entirely from these that we shall learn to appre- 
ciate great art. 

Ruskin tells us that to use books rightly is to 
be led by them into a wider sight and purer 
conception than our own; to receive from them 
"the united sentence of the judges and councils 
of all time against our solitary and unstable 
opinion." 

While this is sound in a measure, it is incom- 



10 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

plete; it leaves out of account the value of what 
he calls our unstable opinion. For our opinion 
has, indeed, a value which lies not so much in 
the character of the opinion itself, perhaps, as 
in the fact that it is our own. Our opinion of any 
work of art, if that opinion is truly our own, 
results from our individual response to the 
beauty or power contained in that particular 
form of art. A great book, for instance, produces 
on us a certain effect; our translation of that 
effect into ideas, words, and opinions of our own, 
is of some value. To be of an open mind, recep- 
tive of beauty, to be desirous of it, affected by it, 
responsive to it, — here is the beginning of 
all criticism and appreciation of any art form 
whatsoever. 

In a few beautiful paragraphs in his preface 
to the "Renaissance," Pater speaks of this, our 
personal relation to art, and notes the value of it. 
He urges that not only is it essential to the 
understanding and realization of beautiful art 
forms to "see the object as in itself it really is," 
but it is further essential to know one's own 
impression of any given art form, to "discrimin- 
ate" this impression, "to realize it distinctly." 
This is, of course, but another way of saying that 
we are not to follow blindly another's opinions, 
but are to have an opinion of our own; we are 



ON JUDGING OF GREAT BOOKS 11 

to analyze and "realize" the impression made 
on ourselves by the work of art; we are to read, 
if it be literature, or see, if it be sculpture or 
painting, or listen, if it be music, thinkingly 
and realizingly. With clear insight he points out 
that "music, poetry, artistic and accomplished 
forms of human life . . . possess, like the 
products of nature, so many virtues and qual- 
ities." 

(That great form of architecture and art which 
we call the Taj Mahal, for instance, is as a cup 
holding a different wine and a quite different 
"virtue" from that held by the art form known 
as the "Divine Comedy," the "Venus de Milo." 
A realizing sense must come, first of all, then, of 
this distinction, this "virtue" and "quality," 
and then a realizing sense of the effect of this 
"virtue" and "quality" on ourselves.) 

"What is this song or picture, this engaging 
personality presented in life or in a book, to me? 
What effect does it really produce on me? Does 
it give me pleasure? and if so, what sort or 
degree of pleasure? How is my nature modified 
by its presence and under its influence?" 

(The lover and seeker after beauty and he 
who would study intelligently any of its forms 
feels the peculiar influence of beauty and strives 
to realize that influence, and interpret it to 



12 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

himself; strives to translate, as it were, his 
impression into the language of ideals.) 

"To him the picture, the landscape, the engag- 
ing personality in life or in a book, 'LaGioconda,' 
the hills of Carrara, Pico of Mirandola, are 
valuable for their virtues, as we say in speaking 
of an herb, a wine, a gem; for the property each 
has of affecting one with a special, a unique, 
impression of pleasure." 

Pater goes further to say that "our education 
becomes complete in proportion as our suscepti- 
bility to these impressions increases in depth 
and variety"; and there might be added, what 
is inferred, in proportion as our realization of 
these impressions augments. 

In our study of great books, then, it were well 
to remember that each of the books studied has 
a "quality," a " virtue," a personality of its own; 
it were wise to realize this quality and to note 
its effect on ourselves. 

Analytic studies of great books are valuable; 
scholarly treatises on the meaning and intent of 
the author is of help; elucidation of difficult 
passages is necessary, perhaps, to a com^plete 
understanding of the work; but these alone are 
but as a valley of dry bones, until there is 
breathed into them that fine spirit of personal 
interpretation which gives life and meaning to 



ON JUDGmG OF GREAT BOOKS 13 

the whole. The present studies of great books 
do not pretend to be either exhaustive or com- 
plete. They are meant, rather, to be suggestive. 
Being in themselves interpretive it is hoped they 
will suggest and stimulate further interpretation 
on the part of the reader and so enable him to 
come into a more personal relationship with the 
forms of art here treated of. Those who wish to 
carry their studies further will find helpful many 
of the volumes mentioned in the lists of collateral 
reading. 

It should not be forgotten that the several 
books here written of are so many forms of a 
great art, and that each form is in itself worthy 
of extended study. It should be noted that each 
form differs much from the others. One is clearly 
classic, another mediaeval and wrought with 
many a strange device; still another is like a cup 
overlaid with delicate tracery and arabesque. 
The form, the touch, as it were, of each will be 
an experience of exquisite pleasure to the sen- 
sitive and discriminating hand. Yet, while we 
should be sensitive to the beauty of the form, 
it should be remembered that these books are as 
cups wrought to hold that more precious wine 
of man's knowledge, pressed from what varied 
fruit of experience, in what diverse climes and 
under what different skies of chance. To taste 



14 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

that wine, to "discriminate" it, to judge some- 
what of the flavor and "virtue" of it for our- 
selves, and to apprehend — subtly distilled in 
it, and with a special meaning for us — the sun- 
shine and storm, the winds and rains, the growth 
and stress, and patience and distillation of hope 
and beauty which went in ages gone to the mak- 
ing of it, — this should be the task, and will be 
the pleasure, of all those who study thinkingly 
and realizingly the world's great books. 



CHAPTER III 
GREAT WRITERS AS INTERPRETERS 

The writer like the painter is an interpreter 
rather than a creator. He selects and interprets 
and reveals. He takes from the mass of human 
experience such things as seem to him especially 
noteworthy, or beautiful or proven true. These 
he sets before us in certain relations; to these he 
calls our attention; and, in whatever form pleas- 
ing to himself, shows us or interprets for us their 
meaning. However great he may seem to be in 
himself, he is great only as he interprets greatly 
human experience, not as it has been known to 
himself only, but as it has been tested and tried 
and proven by thousands since the world began. 

The ages lie immediately back of every great 
book. Before Ulysses could set sail for Troy to 
redeem with other kings his promise of loyalty, 
thousands of other men, in ages past, had sailed 
the seas and redeemed their promises as faith- 
fully. Before Ulysses set his wandering sails 
hopefully toward home, countless others, un- 
named, in the glimmering distant ages had 
turned white faces homeward, hopefully, and 
dreamed of wife and children and welcome 



16 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

hearth. Before Ulysses deafened his companions' 
ears to the fatal voices of the sirens and had him- 
self bound with cords that he might not yield to 
their sweetness, and often — before he forbore 
to taste of the lotos — others, long dead and as 
brave and wise as he, had fortified themselves 
against temptation not less, and had resisted 
the allurement of dreams, to take up, instead, 
the active toil of difficult life. Before Ulysses 
ever came and strove and despaired and hoped 
again, and attained at last, men as many as the 
stars of the heavens had striven and done battle; 
had been struck down and had risen again; and 
had grasped at last, for a little time of respite, 
and after much suffering, the dear rewards of life. 

We think of the creator of Ulysses as Homer; 
we think of his father as Laertes; but in reality 
the father of Ulysses is human suffering, and his 
mother the ages of the world; and but for the 
thousands of men and women who had gone 
before, testing life, pitting their strength against 
life's natural forces, failing and succeeding and 
out of these attaining to knowledge and wisdom, 
but for these, Ulysses would never have been. 

For the whole background of art and the 
source of all literature is human experience. The 
poet but selects from this experience this or 
that. Let me repeat that he has originated 



GREAT WRITERS AS INTERPRETERS 17 

nothing. He has at the best but "discriminated " 
and interpreted and been a voice and mouth- 
piece for some of those enacted truths so far 
greater than himself. 

This same thing has been said often enough 
before. But it should be realized newly by every 
one who has a desire or love for art in any form. 
Plato, in the dialogue between Ion and Socrates, 
observed it when he said: "The poets are only 
the interpreters of the gods, by whom they are 
severally possessed." It is only another way of 
saying that the great underlying experiences and 
truths of life "possess" the poet and find in 
him a tongue and a language. Moses was in this 
sense a poet as well as a prophet, interpreting 
to his people the meanings of the Most High. 

Browning calls attention to the interpretive 
office of the painter, similar in all essentials to 
that of the poet, when in the person of Lippo 
Lippi, he says : — 

We're made so that we love 

First when we see them painted, things we have passed 

Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see; 

And so they are better, painted — better to us. 

Which is the same thing. Art was given for thaty 

God uses us to help each other 50, 

Lending our minds out. 

This, too, of Carlyle, when he speaks of the 
poet and the poet's office: — 



18 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

He [the poet] is to reveal that to us — that sacred 
mystery which he more than others lives ever present with, 
. . . Whosoever may live in the shows of things, it is 
for him a necessity of nature to live in the very fact of 
things. 

Nor is the poet less but greater by the fact 
that he is a revealer and interpreter rather than 
what we are wont to call an originator. We call 
original, generally, people who are distinguished 
by peculiar and different and extraordinary 
views and opinions; but the great poet is dis- 
tinguished by no such things. He deals, rather, 
in the familiar and universal. He does not inter- 
pret or reveal what is peculiar either to himself 
or to any one person or sect, but he interprets 
rather the usual, the human, the daily, God's 
great commonplaces. And though he gives a 
particular name to his hero, look close and you 
will find that hero to be not Ulysses, or Faust, 
or Christian, — but mankind. Homer does not 
lose but is the greater by this, that Ulysses is 
his brother in the human race rather than a 
mere ethereal creation of his fancy. Dante is the 
greater because his "Divine Comedy" is not 
built from airy imaginings, but is constructed 
from the bottom up of human sins and human 
sufferings, human rewards which he saw and 
sensed and observed in the very materials of 



GREAT WRITERS AS INTERPRETERS 19 

human life, and called their names "Hell" and 
"Purgatory" and "Paradise." 

This broader conception of the poet's office as 
interpreter rather than originator is necessary 
to a broad understanding of the world's great 
books. We should understand once for all that 
it is life itself that all great poets are interpreting 
for us, and that it is life itself that we shall better 
understand in reading and understanding any 
great book. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE WRITER'S MESSAGE 

It is obvious that a poet can interpret for us 
not all of life, only life in part. It is of interest, 
therefore, to note what part or parts of life the 
poet selects. It is presumable he will select that 
which has impressed him most strongly, some 
truth and beauty to which he has especially 
responded and responded perhaps most often. 
It is not unlikely he will choose from the general 
experience of humanity those experiences to 
which his own are most akin. The sorrows or 
joys he tells of, and the spiritual truths he sets 
out, are likely to be those to which his own joys 
and sorrows and wisdom are closely allied. 

Hence, while great art is never drawn from 
personal sources, yet it is intricately inwoven 
with the artist's personality; some touch of 
himself is in it. He has interpreted this and not 
that phase of human experience. The selection 
is his; the selection glows with his personality, 
and so conveys his rather than another's mes- 
sage. Homer has one message, Goethe another; 
yet both draw for their facts from the same 
great source — life itself and human experience. 



THE WRITER'S MESSAGE 21 

As we study the matter carefully it is interest- 
ing to note that the message of all great books, 
however widely these books may differ, is rooted 
in some moral conception of the author. No one 
can look deeply into life without coming upon 
what we take to be its underlying moral pur- 
poses; and poets look into life very deeply. 
Even Goethe, who contended that "the Beauti- 
ful is higher than the Good," adds that the 
Beautiful includes in it the Good. However we 
may gauge any of the great books by standards 
of Aesthetics and find them beautiful, we shall 
have to admit, as Goethe did, that there, too, 
the Beautiful includes in it the Good. 

Carlyle, in his "Heroes and Hero Worship," 
notes that the calling of the Prophet, the Man of 
God, — the man, that is, who speaks to the 
people of God, — and that of the Poet, — the 
man who speaks to the people of life and human 
experience, — merge into one. Both "have 
penetrated into the sacred mystery of the 
Universe. . . . The Prophet, we might say, has 
seized that sacred mystery rather on the moral 
side as Good and Evil, Duty and Prohibition; 
the . . . Poet on what the Germans call the 
aesthetic side, as Beautiful and the like. The one 
we may call a revealer of what we are to do, the 
other of what we are to love." Then follows this. 



22 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

significantly: ''But indeed these two provinces run 
into one another and cannot be disjoined." 

We may read any great book for the beauty 
of it, but we cannot read it earnestly without 
coming also on the goodness of it, without dis- 
covering in it some large moral and spiritual 
revelation; something that speaks to the spirit 
of us. And it is in this selection and revelation 
of moral and spiritual truth, even more than 
in his selection and revelation of physical and 
material loveliness, that we come face to face 
with the author. This is the truth that was 
known and dear to him, this the universal spirit- 
ual fact most intricately inwoven with his own 
spiritual experience. Others may show us other 
truths, but this particular truth he shows us, 
reveals to us better than another; Homer one, 
Goethe another, Job another. 

And each truth is beautiful and each different 
and each precious. "The first foundation was 
jasper; the second sapphire; the third a chalced- 
ony; the fourth an emerald." 

And beyond all these truths so precious we 
apprehend some larger and immortal truth, some 
hoped for and more splendid and final revelation 
which these, glorious as they are, do but wall 
and shut away from our yet unready eyes. 



CHAPTER V 
THE ODYSSEY 

The good master [Virgil] began to say : " Mark him with that 
sword in hand, who precedes the three even as their lord. That is 
Homer, the sovereign Poet." 

Dante, The Inferno. 

As one that for a weary space has lain 
" Lulled by the song of Circe and her wine 
In gardens near the gate of Proserpine, 
Where that ^gean isle forgets the main, 
And only the low lutes of love complain. 
And only shadows of wan lovers pine. 
As such a one were glad to know the brine 
Salt on his lips and the large air again — 
So gladly, from the songs of modern speech 
Men turn and see the stars, and feel the free 
Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers, 
And through the music of the languid hours 
They hear like ocean on a western beach 
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey. 

Andrew Lang. 

"Homer the first and greatest of the poets 
... a poet for all ages, all races, all moods." 
It is so that a noted student of Homer in our own 
day writes of the author of the "Odyssey." 

We have few facts concerning Shakespeare, 
and Shakespeare died a little less than three 
hundred years ago. We have few, indeed, con- 
cerning Homer, who died, it is reckoned, three 
thousand and more years ago. We are wont to 
think of the "Great Age" of Greece — the age, 



24 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

that is, of Phidias, ^Eschylus, and Pericles — 
as the very heart of ancient classic times; yet 
the age of Homer, and, older still, the time of 
which he writes, antedate this by more than 
twice as many centuries as Shakespeare's age 
antedates our own age. Notwithstanding this 
the name of Homer towers still among the great- 
est of the world to-day; and though we are with- 
out authentic knowledge of his life and history, 
we find him moving among the most famous of 
the earth — a personality of persistent greatness. 
There are, it is true, eminent scholars and 
earnest students who contend that the "Iliad" 
and the "Odyssey" are not the works of any 
one man but of many; who insist there was no 
personal Homer, as we have supposed; but the 
world in general continues to believe that there 
lived, about twelve centuries before the coming 
of Christ, one Homer, or Homerus, a Greek, 
blind, it is said, who saw life with a poet's eyes, 
sang of it with a poet's tongue and interpreted 
it with a poet's heart in the "Iliad" and the 
"Odyssey," the two greatest epics the world 
has known. 

THE PERSONALITY OF HOMER 

If we look to his writings for some revelation 
of the man, we find every evidence that Homer 



THE ODYSSEY 25 

had a broader and deeper experience of life than 
comes to most men. Sorrow and separation and 
peril and glory; a life of peace, as well as the 
fortunes of war; these, we think, he must have 
known; gentle, reverent, keenly observant of life, 
wise, — these we think he must have been ; a man, 
no doubt, like all great poets, above the age in 
which he lived; traveled, we suppose; acquainted 
with all classes; at home alike, as we think Shake- 
speare would have been, in the courts of princes 
or huts of swineherds; a careful and interested 
and delighted beholder of nature; a watchful 
and understanding observer of human nature 
and human events. He writes of "manliness, 
courage, reverence for old age and for the hos- 
pitable hearth; of justice, piety, pity, brave 
attitude toward life and death. . . . He delights 
in the joy of battle and in all the movements of 
war. Yet he delights not less, but more, in peace; 
in prosperous cities, hearths secure; in the tender 
beauty of children, in the love of wedded wives, 
in the frank nobility of maidens, in the beauty 
of earth and sky and sea." 

The things which Homer takes from the great 
mass of human experience, which he observes 
and selects and interprets and reveals, are many 
and varied. 

In the "Iliad" and "Odyssey," as in life itself. 



26 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

customs come and go, men live and die, king- 
doms rise and fall, but the great humanities 
remain and recur, inextricably interwoven; sor- 
row, joy, virtue, human effort, man's sense of 
duty, justice, loyalty, honor, endurance, man's 
right of conquest, his perpetual desire for knowl- 
edge, his love of home and kindred, these, as in 
life, remain, while the individual history moves 
and alters. As in life they are a kind of immortal- 
ity in the midst of man's mortality, a sort of 
permanency at the very center of all change, 
a something sure on which to base all that is 
lasting in our knowledge, and on which to build, 
all that is permanent in our faiths; so here in 
these two great epics they are a permanency in 
the midst of all the changing happenings of the 
story; a kind of lasting humanity in the midst 
of fickle fortunes and inconstant chance. It is 
these above all that Homer observes, selects, 
interprets for us. 

It is generally admitted as one of the require- 
ments of great art that it shall have that quality 
which, for lack of a better word, we call democ- 
racy; that it shall be not for any small or re* 
stricted class, but that it shall be for and of the 
people. The "Odyssey" meets this requirement. 
Homer is one with the people, the "Odyssey " is 
for and of them, a thing" for all races, all moods.'* 



THE ODYSSEY 27 

When we study the "Odyssey" for itself, 
quite apart from its relation to its author, we 
find it in all its coloring and detail essentially 
Greek; a brilliant survival in literature of an 
old and wonderful civilization which had, we 
believe, sprung up and flowered and withered 
twelve or fifteen centuries, perhaps more, be- 
fore the star of the Wise Men shone over Beth- 
lehem. 

As we to-day look back to the times of Arthur, 
to the age of chivalry, as to times of particular 
romance separated from our own day by a kind 
of golden mist of tradition and by a mellowed 
charm of half-real, half-legendary happening, 
so the Greeks of the Great Age in Greece — five 
hundred years before Christ — looked back, no 
doubt, to that still earlier Heroic Age as to a 
time of golden romance; looked back to the 
days of Achilles and Ulysses and their compan- 
ions, when kings warred and conquered and 
built cities for their friends, and lived loyally, 
and went seeking high adventure among the 
broken islands and wandering waters of Greece; 
looked back to a time when, pledged to a kind 
of royal brotherhood not unlike the brotherhood 
of the Round Table, their gathered galleys 
smote the sea with rhymed oars, and the hearts 
of heroes and chiefs of the land and those of 



28 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

their companions beat in unison to one loyal 
purpose. 

The War of Troy from which the "Iliad" and 
"Odyssey" are drawn, was on the Greek side 
a war of united friendship, personal friendship 
in the good golden days when such a personal 
friendship on so large a scale was possible; when 
a hundred kings and chiefs pledged one king 
their loyalty and left home and country and all 
that was dear to them to endure war and 
suffering for ten long years toward the fulfilling 
of their pledge. 

Life then was on a generous scale, was less 
detailed and far more simple. If in that golden 
age there was more, also, than the mere symbol 
of gold, if the actual metal itself overlaid thickly 
the pillars of kings' houses, there was, too, it 
seems, something golden and precious in man's 
mettle, and life itself had less alloy. 

William Morris, in the first lines of his 
"Sigurd the Volsung," has described an age 
something like it, but in a less sunny, less favor- 
able land. Here, too, is pictured an age when 
something golden and worthy clung about the 
humblest measures of life, when the great men 
of the land were the great doers, and the noblest 
women, too, rendered noble the humblest service, 
when they lent their hands to the weaving, the 



THE ODYSSEY 29 

washing, and the strewing of the floors with 

rushes. 

There was a dwelling of kings ere the world was waxen old; 

Dukes were the door-wards there, and the roofs were 

thatched with gold; 
Earls were the wrights that wrought it, and silver nailed 

its doors; 
Earls* wives were the weaving-women, queens' daughters 

strewed its floors. 

To those who have read the "Odyssey" these 
opening lines of "Sigurd the Volsung" ring 
familiar. The description calls to mind the 
"dweUings" of those kings — Menelaus, Alci- 
nous, Odysseus. Here is a kind of primitive 
romance, and a chivalry of such an order as to 
make the later chivalry and romance of our own 
Middle Ages seem somewhat bedecked, a little 
tricked-out, something perhaps less sincere, 
certainly less frank and sunny. 

If we take merely the outline of the story of 
the Trojan War itself, we get at once into the 
heart of an old and classic and sunlit romance 
that shines brightly across our darker or more 
dim, less colored, ages. Where, in all later 
history, shall we find such a war waged and for 
such a woman. Where could we turn to match 
the matchless Helen and that 

face that launched a thousand ships 
And burned the topless towers of Ilium. 



30 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

Though the "Odyssey" relates mainly the 
events subsequent to the Trojan War, and is 
concerned with Ulysses' return from Troy, yet 
to enter fully into the spirit of it one must have 
in mind the main facts of the Trojan War itself 
and must know of Helen who caused that war. 

Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, 
was wooed by many of the Greek chiefs. That 
they might not quarrel for her among themselves, 
and that she might be more safe and free in her 
selection of a husband, all these promised to 
uphold her choice, agreeing that after it was 
made they would, if ever need came, unite in her 
defense. Her choice fell on Menelaus. But some- 
what later Paris, son of the King of Troy, visit- 
ing the palace of Menelaus, stole away Helen 
into captivity with the aid of Aphrodite, whose 
favorite he was. The princes and kings of 
Greece, therefore, rallied to the aid of Menelaus. 
Each brought not his own services merely, but 
ships and companions; so that the Greek arma- 
ment launched against Troy consisted of more 
than a thousand vessels, and it is reckoned 
a hundred thousand Greeks embarked on the 
famous expedition. After ten years of siege 
Troy was conquered, but not without the loss 
of many Trojan and Greek heroes. Helen was 
restored at last to Menelaus, and they and the 



THE ODYSSEY 31 

surviving Greek chiefs turned their faces toward 
home. But though the others reached home 
in safety, much suffering and long delay befell 
Ulysses. After fearful adventures and hardships, 
during which his ship companions all met death, 
Ulysses was at last cast, shipwrecked, on the 
island of the sea nymph Calypso. Calypso 
became enamored of him, and despite his long- 
ing to return to Ithaca, his home, she detained 
him with her for seven long years. 

The "Odyssey" opens just as the seven years 
are drawing to a close. The story, briefly told, 
might read as follows : — 

THE STORY OF THE ODYSSEY 

Early in those days when the pagan deities 
held sway in Greece, the gods were assembled in 
heaven to discuss matters of import, and among 
others the fate and affairs of man, man the 
presumptuous. For was he not, indeed, pre- 
sumptuous, often blaming the deities for ill 
fortune due wholly to his own follies.^ There 
was, for example, the fate of iEgisthus; had he 
not been warned of the gods, yet had gone head- 
long to his iaie? 

But Pallas Athena, goddess of wisdom, admit- 
ting all this, complained nevertheless that the 
deities were not always so blameless of man's 



32 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

misfortune. There was, for noteworthy instance, 
the sorrowful fate of Ulysses, her favorite, 
Ulysses the prudent, the sage, the wise. When 
had Ulysses failed of reverence to the immor- 
tals .^^ When had he deserved his fate? Yet did 
not the great chief now languish on Calypso's 
isle, detained there by her year after year.^ All 
this Zeus considered. It was through the instru- 
mentality of Poseidon, god of the sea, whose 
favorite, Polyphemus, Ulysses had made blind, 
that the Greek chief was detained in the midst 
of the sea, far from home. Yet because of the 
wrath of one god should the favor of the rest be 
withheld from him who had always served them 
faithfully? 

So it was agreed at last that Hermes, the 
messenger of the gods, be sent to Calypso to 
warn her that Ulysses must be released and 
allowed to take up once more his homeward 
journey. And so it was that Ulysses was allowed 
to depart upon his way, and again turned his 
face toward Ithaca. 

Now in Ithaca, in the palace of Ulysses, 
Penelope, his wife, had, during the seventeen 
long years of his absence, faithfully awaited 
the return of her lord. Many suitors came 
to beg her hand in marriage, but Penelope re- 
fused them all and waited faithfully from day 



THE ODYSSEY 33 

to day for Ulysses; and from year to year, 
as he did not come, she mourned the great 
chief. 

As time wore on and years passed and still 
Ulysses did not come, as other kings returned 
from Troy and brought no news of him, the 
suitors of Penelope grew first impatient, then 
insolent, and took up their abode at last in the 
very palace of Ulysses. There they feasted and 
drank, and urged Penelope to make her choice 
among them. But always, by means of one 
excuse or another, Penelope put them off and 
delayed her decision; for though she was help- 
less against so many, yet her heart remained 
true to the memory of Ulysses. With some of 
Ulysses' own craft, she suggested that the suit- 
ors wait until she had finished the weaving of a 
web or shroud on which she was then engaged. 
That finished she would make her choice. So 
the suitors agreed to wait, and waiting feasted 
on the beeves and drank the stored wine of the 
absent Ulysses. But the threads which by day 
Penelope had woven by night she would ravel 
out, so that the web was never done. When this 
was at last discovered by the suitors they were 
angry and pressed her anew for her answer. 
They would not wait longer. Was not Ulysses 
dead? Had not seven years elapsed since the 



34 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

fall of Troy? Had any brought so much as faint 
tidings of him? 

Meantime, while all this took place at the 
palace of Ulysses in Ithaca, the great Ulysses 
himself continued his journey homeward. But 
though Pallas Athena still befriended him, yet 
Poseidon, the god of the sea, was his enemy, so 
that after his release from Calypso's island new 
peril and suffering befell him. Yet with patient 
persistence and for three years longer he jour- 
neyed on toward Ithaca. 

At the end of that time, and twenty years 
after his departure for Troy, his foot touched 
once more the shores of his own land. Pallas 
Athena, for her own wise ends, had changed him 
now in appearance to an old man, bent with 
years and suffering and ragged with poverty, 
one whom none would guess to be the great 
Ulysses. In this guise the goddess bade him seek 
not his palace, but rather the hut of Eumseus, 
a swineherd on his estates. At the hut of the 
swineherd Ulysses was received hospitably and 
heard there the story of all that had happened 
during his absence. 

To this hut, too, Pallas Athena guided Tele- 
machus, the son of Ulysses, who was but a child 
when his father sailed for Troy; and it was here 
that Ulysses made himself known to Telemachus, 



THE ODYSSEY 35 

and here that the father and son planned together 
what might be done to overthrow the suitors. 
It was decided that Telemachus should return 
to the palace and say nothing of Ulysses' return, 
not even to Penelope, and that the great chief 
should remain in the swineherd's hut that night. 
The next day Ulysses, still in the guise of an old 
man, visited the palace, where the suitors, bold 
and insolent and not guessing who he was, 
offered him jeers and taunts. Penelope, however, 
showed him kindness; and when the night closed 
and the noisy suitors were gone to rest, she had 
a seat brought and placed near her own at the 
hearth for the aged beggar; and there she ques- 
tioned him, as she questioned all strangers, 
whether he could perchance give her tidings of 
Ulysses. Then the old man told her that he had, 
indeed, with his own eyes seen Ulysses in distant 
countries, and he begged her to believe that ere 
long Ulysses would return to his own once more. 

THE CONTEST 

Though Penelope longed to believe him, yet 
she dared not. Moved, however, by his recital, 
she told him something of her own woes; told 
him how the suitors, grown impatient, urged 
her once more to make her choice among them, 
and would not be put off. She told him, too, that 



36 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

she had determined to offer them, on the mor- 
row, a contest. In an upper chamber she had 
guarded all these years the bow of Ulysses, 
which she had always believed none but the 
great chief himself could bend. On the morrow, 
she would promise to give herself to that one of 
the suitors who would bend the bow and send a 
shaft from it through twelve rings of steel. 

In this plan Ulysses saw the chance he longed 
for of dealing with the suitors. Still not daring 
to discover himself to her, lest his plan should 
miscarry, they parted for the night, she to her 
chamber to dream of Ulysses, he to sleep on the 
porch of his palace, dreaming of the morrow. 

The following day, at a feast set for the pur- 
pose, the contest was proposed and agreed to 
by the suitors. One after another each tried to 
string the great bow of Ulysses, but not one 
among them all could bend it. Then Ulysses 
asked permission to try. The suitors protested. 
Should this old beggar be allowed to enter the 
contest with them.^^ But the gentle Penelope 
urged his right to try. Then, amid the anger and 
jeers and taunts of the suitors, Ulysses took the 
great bow in his hand, tested it and tried it, 
turned it and felt of it; then at last, with his old- 
time ease, strung it, and with sure aim sent the 
shaft through the rings. Then, with a given 



THE ODYSSEY S7 

signal to Telemachus, and aided once more by 
Pallas Athena, Ulysses turned on the suitors 
and showered his shafts among them, and dealt 
death to them all. The disguise of age had now 
fallen from him. Once more he was Ulysses the 
strong and mighty, Ulysses returned to his own. 
Reunion with the patient Penelope followed, and 
Ulysses, united once more to his people, and 
beloved of his subjects, reigned long in Ithaca. 

This is, of course, the mere bare outline of the 
tale. The story is full of stirring incidents and 
beautiful passages. There are stories within the 
story. The "Odyssey" is divided into twenty- 
four chapters or books. The sixth and seventh 
books, for instance, with their accounts of the 
court of Alcinous, the love of Nausicaa, comprise 
a beautiful story in themselves. The ninth, 
tenth, eleventh, and twelfth books, giving the 
tale of Ulysses' adventures, are those best known 
and most often quoted, and are complete, almost 
as they stand. In these Ulysses recounts the ad- 
ventures of himself and his companions in the 
land of the Lotos-Eaters, in the land of the 
Cyclops, in the land of iEolus; in these he tells 
of the enchantments of Circe; of his visit to the 
land of the Dead; the temptation of the Sirens; 
the escape from Scylla and Charybdis, and the 



38 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

feeding on the oxen of the sun. In the other 
books the adventures are told of Ulysses, but 
these are told by him and are correspondingly 
strong and vivid in interest. 

The nineteenth, twenty-first, and twenty- 
third books are especially beautiful and famous. 
Everywhere there is evident the touch of a 
master's hand. The plan and workmanship are 
sure and true. The structure is simple and pure 
in line like a Greek temple: the absence of 
Ulysses, the waiting of Penelope, Ulysses' re- 
turn, and the recital, as he returns, of his ad- 
ventures; the appearance of the heroin Ithaca, 
the conflict with the suitors and the triumph 
over them; the reunion of Ulysses and Penelope 
at last. 

To this convincing simplicity and directness 
of plot are added the poet's imagination, his 
"invention," and his fine manner of telling the 
tale, what Pope calls "that unequal fire and 
rapture which is so forcible in Homer, that no 
man of a true poetical spirit is master of himself 
while he reads him. Everything moves, every- 
thing lives and is put in action; the reader is 
hurried out of himself by the force of the poet's 
imagination, and turns in one place to a hearer, 
in another to a spectator. The course of his 
verses resembles that of the army he describes — 



THE ODYSSEY 39 

*they pour along like a fire that sweeps the whole 
earth before it.' " 

Nor are we merely hearers or spectators; we 
are participators, too, sympathizers, we our- 
selves are of the "Odyssey" as we read it. We 
are responsive to it, impressed by it, subtly 
wrought upon by it. And if, following the advice 
of Pater, we analyze somewhat this impression, 
if we "realize" it distinctly and "discriminate" 
it, and if we try to interpret to ourselves the 
unique "quality" or "virtue" which distin- 
guishes this great book, we shall find in it some 
distillation of the spiritual meanings of life. The 
more we taste of it, the more we shall discover 
like a fine flavor some distinct spiritual essence 
pervading the entire wine. 

For a truly great work of art never satisfies 
only a man's intellect nor squares only with his 
general knowledge of life; but it holds within 
itself, as a cup holds wine, some spiritual truth 
and essence to satisfy his spirit, something to 
explain and interpret his own spiritual longings 
and slake that thirst for goodness which is upon 
his soul. 

With this in view it is interesting to note that 
all great books may be said to have distilled in 
them, as it were, not the mere general experiences 
of the spirit, but as their essential flavor some 



40 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

one great spiritual experience, some one particu- 
lar flower or fruit of the spirit gathered again 
and again, and pressed out over and over. 

The "Odyssey," for instance, is, as is many 
another great book, the recital of diflSculties 
overcome, of man's struggle with powers vaster 
than his own. But look carefully and you will 
see that in this particular book the difficulties 
of all kinds are overcome not by force and fierce 
endeavor so much as by a kind of thoughtful 
endurance and patience. Again and again, this 
endurance, this patience — for that is the better 
word — is insisted on; again and again this 
experience, this fruit of the spirit, is thrown into 
the winepress, as it were, and pressed out. 

Study the story carefully, examine it, and 
you will find that patience seems to be the very 
center and motive of it. Homer describes 
Ulysses not once but again and again as a patient 
man. His very name, the Great Sufferer, 
coupled with the incident of the story, implies as 
much. He has many other traits besides this 
one of patience. He has bravery. Penelope 
speaks of him as the "lion-heart." He has wis- 
dom and invention: Calypso calls him "man of 
many wiles." He is wise in council, traveled, 
strong in purpose. Yet Homer chooses oftenest 
to call him "the great sufferer," and in the 



I 



THE ODYSSEY 41 

mouth of Menelaus puts those words in which 
he seems to take most care to describe him: — 

Of many valiant warriors have I known 
The counsels and the purposes, and far 
Have roamed in many lands, but never yet 
My eyes have looked on such another man 
As was Ulysses, of a heart so bold 
And such endurance. 

And we find more notably still those same traits 
of endurance and patience shown forth in the 
famous cry of Ulysses to his own heart : — 

There have been times when bitter agonies 
Have tried thy patience . . . 

Endure it, heart! Thou hast borne worse than this. 

Indeed, the "Odyssey" might almost be 
called the "Epic of Patience." Not only is the 
trait set out positively but negatively as well. 
The enduring patience of Ulysses impresses us 
the more strongly because it is so finely con- 
trasted with the impatience of his companions. 
In one adventure after another many of them 
go rashly, impatiently, to their deaths, and 
the story knows them no more. They do not 
work patiently, wisely, with conditions, as does 
Ulysses, but brush impatiently, unwisely against 
them and are overcome by them. 

It is not less interesting to remember that 



42 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

Homer's other great character, Achilles, the 
hero of the "Iliad" is as notable for his rashness, 
his impatience, his refusal to endure, as Ulysses 
is famous for his long suffering. Achilles, " Ache- 
of -Heart," Ulysses, "Long-Suffering," are splen- 
didly contrasted; but each touches into life the 
beauty of the same great spiritual quality.^ It 
is only a small part of life, a small part of spirit- 
ual life, this patience, but it is this that Homer 

1 In describing Athena, Ruskin, in Queen of the Air, points 
out that the four great virtues of which she is the spirit are 
"Prudence (the right seeing and foreseeing of events through 
darkness); Justice (the righteous bestowal of favor and indigna- 
tion); Fortitude (patience under trial by pain); and Temperance 
(patience under trial by pleasure). With respect to these four 
virtues, the attributes of Athena are all distinct. In her prudence, 
or sight in darkness, she is * owl-eyed.' In her justice, which is 
the dominant virtue, she wears two robes, one of light saffron color, 
or color of the daybreak, falls to her feet, covering her wholly with 
favor and love — the calm of the sky in blessing; . . . then her 
robe of indignation is worn on her breast and left arm only, fringed 
with fatal serpents, and fastened with Gorgonian cold, turning 
men to stone; physically the lightning and the hail of chastisement 
by storm. Then in her fortitude, she bears the crested and unstoop- 
ing helmet; and lastly in her temperance, she is the queen of maiden- 
hood — stainless as the air of heaven. 

"But all these virtues mass themselves in the Greek mind 
into the two main uses, — of Justice, or noble passion, and 
Fortitude, or noble patience; and of these, the chief powers of 
Athena, the Greeks had divinely written for them, and for all men 
after them, two mighty songs, — one, of the Menis, Mens, passion 
or zeal of Athena, breathed into a mortal whose name is *Ache-of- 
Heart,' and whose short life is only the incarnate brooding burst 
of storm; and the other is of the foresight and fortitude of Athena, 
maintained by her in the heart of a mortal whose name is given 
him from a longer grief, Odysseus, the full of sorrow, the much 
enduring, the long suffering." - 



THE ODYSSEY 43 

here, there, everywhere has selected; from the 
great mass of life, he has chosen this. It is not of 
his originating, it is old as the race. It has grown 
in the fields of life, as it were, in sunshine and 
storm, and bloomed in all seasons long before 
Homer himself came to wander in those fields, 
and wandering there chanced on it. But it is 
his selection, borne home to him and by him, — 
flower and fruit of it, and pressed out in this 
fine flavor that we in centuries after are privi- 
leged to taste. Here is a part of that property, 
that "quality," that "virtue," which distin- 
guishes this wine, and is to be found never quite 
the same in any other; a part of that fine "prop- 
erty" and essence, that tang and bloom and 
"bouquet" as the French would say, to make 
this one of the finest wines of the world. 

Or, if we dwell too long in the one simile, the 
truth shines as clear in another likeness. You 
have noted how in the most great and memorable 
music some one theme dominates the rest and 
gives especial color and meaning to the whole. 
If we take Wagner's operas as very notable 
examples, we find some one or two dominating 
motifs or themes occurring and recurring, such, 
for instance, as the "fate motif" in the "Gotter- 
dammerung," woven in skillfully with other 
motifs, but more appealing, more convincing, 



44 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

more memorable than the rest. It is just so that 
this dominating theme and motif of patience 
occurs and recurs in the story of the "Odyssey," 
first in one key, then in another; here changed 
a little, there broadened somewhat, but always 
recognizable, insisted on again and again, until 
consciously or unconsciously the soul has memo- 
rized it, as the ear memorizes music, and carries 
it away as a spiritual possession. 

This motif of patience, though it occurs most 
often in relation to the character of Ulysses 
himself, recurs exquisitely, too, in the story of 
Penelope. Not only are Ulysses and Penelope 
beautifully mated as man and woman, husband 
and wife, but their stories are mated as well. The 
motif of patience which runs through the story 
of Ulysses is of masculine, powerful patience; 
in the story of Penelope, it is still patience, 
but feminine, exquisite, tender. For twenty long 
years Penelope patiently awaits her lord. Tales 
of his shipwreck, rumors of his death, longing 
and sorrow, trial and difficulty — not these, not 
anything can break her loving and faithful 
patience. She too endures, as he does, but in a 
different way; it is the same motif, but in a 
different key. 

The story of Ulysses is the story of active 
patience^ set out in the active events and happen- 



THE ODYSSEY 45 

ings which arise in his dealing with the power 
of men and nations and gods. The story of 
Penelope, woven in with the story of Ulysses, is 
the story of that passive patience, ihsii tender and 
strong endurance, which is peculiarly the gift 
of women, and which, though biding at home, 
wins no less great and spiritual victories. 

We have said that the greatest forms of art — 
and very especially this is true of great books — 
interpret the underlying motives and experiences 
of life common to all men, and appeal most of 
all to man's spiritual nature. It is said that "all 
great art calls to the spirit." The call to the 
spirit is here sufficiently clear. Above the great 
beauty of workmanship, and the truthful delin- 
eation of nature and human happening and 
event, rises the strong spiritual appeal. The 
theme of the "Odyssey," a soul patient and 
enduring under difficulty, calls to rich and poor, 
high and low, alike, and calls to them spiritually. 
Consciously or unconsciously we are roused by 
it. Something in our own experience answers to 
it. Have not we, too, in some voyage of the 
spirit, known danger and difficulty.^ Have not 
we, too, had need of such wise patience, such 
endurance? If we, too, might be enduring as 
Ulysses, and, along with him, patiently wise! 
Or if we, too, who have waited perhaps a lesser 



46 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

time for our heart's desire, might but have such 
waiting faith as Penelope! 

So the "Odyssey" helps us better to under- 
stand the patience and endurance of a strong 
soul, and calls to us to attain them, and makes 
us, whether we know it or not, better men and 
women. 

To have Ulysses for friend, the faithful and 
patient Penelope for companion, is to add to the 
nobility of living. They are not people of one 
age or time, but types for all ages, adding to the 
loveliness and meaning of life, interpreting for us 
some of life's greatest experiences, teaching us 
some of its greatest truths, moulding in us 
unconsciously some strength and beauty not 
unlike their own. For more than three thousand 
years they and those who move through the 
pages of this great book have wrought upon the 
hearts of men, refreshed them from weariness, 
and invited them to nobler endeavor. Other 
books have lived and died, as it were, having 
served their brief purpose; but this one, one of 
the greatest books in the world, seems to have 
in it something undying, a touch of that immor- 
tality which characterizes all great beauty and 
all great art. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE DIVINE COMEDY 

How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers I 
This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves 
Birds build their nests ; while canopied with leaves 
Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers, 
And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers ! 
But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves 
Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves, 
And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers ! 
Ah ! from what agonies of heart and brain, 
What exultations trampling on despair, 
What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong, 
What passionate outcry of a soul in pain. 
Uprose this poem of the earth and air, 
This mediaeval miracle of song ! 

Longfellow. 

And hearing also that Cicero, too, had written a book, in which, 
treating of friendship, he had spoken of the consolation of Lselius, 
that most excellent man, on the death of his friend Scipio, I set my- 
self to read that. And although at first it was hard for me to under- 
stand the meaning of them, yet at length I succeeded so far as such 
knowledge of Latin as I possessed and somewhat of understanding 
on my part enabled me to do. And as it befalls that a man who is in 
search of silver sometimes, not without divine ordinance, finds gold 
beyond his expectations, so I, who sought for consolation, found not 
only . healing for my grief, but instruction in the terms used by 
authors in science and other books. 

Dante. 

It is estimated that at least twenty-three 
hundred years, possibly more, lie between the 
writing of the "Odyssey" and the "Divine 
Comedy"; Homer living, it is reckoned, almost 



48 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

a thousand years before the coming of Christ, 
Dante born twelve hundred and sixty -five years 
after it. How well the Italian poet knew the 
writings of Homer we cannot tell. It is generally 
supposed that, there being then no Latin trans- 
lation, the older poet was inaccessible to Dante; 
yet in the "Inferno" Dante places Homer 
among other great men in Limbo where are the 
"blameless heathen." There he is represented 
as dwelling in a noble castle which is begirt with 
lofty walls and surrounded with meadows of 
fresh green. Dante's estimate of Homer is clear. 
The following translation is taken from William 
Warren Vernon's "Readings on the Inferno": 
" Dante sees a noble group of spirits approaching 
him, who, he afterward learns, are four of the 
greatest poets of antiquity. . . . Virgil severally 
names them to Dante, beginning with Homer. 
The good Master began to say : *Mark him with 
that sword in hand, who precedes the three even 
as their lord. That is Homer, the sovereign 
poet.'" 

It is further interesting to note that in the 
same canto Dante, with a touching commin- 
gling of pride and humility, sees himself saluted 
by the great poets as one of their company. 

The shades of the four famous poets of antiq- 
uity ask Virgil, who is now Dante's guide, who 



THE DIVINE COMEDY 49 

this may be whom he brings with him. Being 
told, they welcome Dante among their number. 
"After that they had conversed awhile together, 
they turned to me with sign of salutation: and 
my master smiled thereat. And far greater 
honour yet did they pay me, in that they bade 
me be [one] of their band." 

But though the "sovereign poet" and Dante 
belong to one fellowship, they and their writ- 
ings are as different as the two ages in which they 
were born. We think of the "Odyssey" as writ- 
ten by a man experienced, strong (it seems not 
unfitting that Dante should have pictured him 
as with a sword in his hand) ; a man who had 
known the fortunes of war, yet who was withal 
gentle, benign, and whose life can have retained 
in it, we think, no lasting bitterness. The 
"Divine Comedy" we know to have been writ- 
ten by a man exiled from all that he loved, a man 
who carried with him for years bitterness, a sense 
of wrong, and "ache of heart." 

Some knowledge of Dante himself and his 
times and his experience is needed to throw a 
clear light on the purpose and design of the 
"Divine Comedy." He was born in Florence in 
1265. The "Divine Comedy," it is believed by 
some, was written in the sixteen years immedi- 
ately preceding his death; Boccaccio places it 



50 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

somewhat earlier; some others think the greater 
part of it was written in the last eight years of 
his life. 

Dante may be said to have been influenced 
mainly by two great experiences — his love for 
one woman, and his hatred of injustice. 

There is neither room nor need here to enter 
into the history of Florence of Dante's day. It 
will be sufficient, perhaps, to recall that Florence 
was at that time a city torn by poKtical strife, 
and that Dante took important part in the long- 
continued contest between the Guelphs and 
Ghibellines — her two warring factions. His 
name was early associated with the fortunes of 
Florence. First as soldier, later as magistrate, 
he served her; and her interests were forever dear 
to him. While the city of his birth was sold or 
betrayed to her enemies for lust of power or 
gold, we find him maintaining toward her a 
high ideal of personal service. When there was 
needed an envoy to Rome in behalf of his city, 
we find him bewailing that none but himself was 
fit to go, and none but himself fit to stay to 
defend her. By this time he had become prom- 
inently associated with that party known as 
the Bianchi, which was opposed by the Neri. It 
was, indeed, while he was absent in Rome that 
the Neri gained control of Florence, pillaged the 



THE DIVINE COMEDY 51 

house of Dante, established a government of 
their own, and passed sentence of banishment 
upon him. We are told they even went so far as 
to condemn him to be burnt alive — if he were 
ever found in his forbidden home city. 

So Dante's long exile was begun. Somewhat 
later, in about 1303, the Bianchi made an at- 
tempt to wrest Florence from the Neri, but were 
unsuccessful. In this failure Dante saw his cher- 
ished dream of a return to Florence definitely 
defeated. With less hope now, he wandered from 
place to place, exiled from all that was dear to 
him, longing always for the city of his birth with 
a longing born of his lasting and tender love for 
her, yet bearing about with him, too, a bitter 
sense of the wrongs he had suffered, and a hatred 
of her injustice. 

Once, it is true, the magistrates of Florence 
proposed that he return, but named as their 
condition that he make public apology to the 
reigning power, and pay a fine. Great as was his 
longing to return, his keen sense of justice for- 
bade him to accept such terms. He rejected 
them, and thus, passing new sentence of exile on 
himself, replied: "If I cannot return without 
calling myself guilty, I will never return." 

His life from now on remained to the end one 
of wandering and disappointment. But though 



52 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

the success of that project nearest to his heart, 
his return to Florence, was persistently denied 
him, yet another purpose was fulfilling itself 
during the remaining years of his life and his 
exile. The great poem he had planned long be- 
fore was taking definite form. 

Before studying the later work of Dante, it is 
well to turn to the "Vita Nuova," written when 
he was twenty-seven, in which he celebrates his 
love for Beatrice. Here we find not a common 
love story; it is rather the account of a great 
spiritual passion. In it he tells of his meeting 
with a being who from thenceforth exerted the 
strongest possible influence on his life and char- 
acter. 

In his ninth year, it appears, Dante saw for 
the first time a child one year his junior whom 
he calls Beatrice. From then until he was eight- 
een he never even so much as spoke with her, 
but kept her in his heart a cherished ideal. His 
recorded interviews with her are infrequent and 
fragmentary; yet her beauty and her spiritual 
qualities gained such sway over him that she 
became the very lady of his soul. From the 
moment he saw her there began for him that new 
life which he has recorded in the great love auto- 
biography which he called by that name. Though 
the "Vita Nuova" is written in a manner so 



THE DIVINE COMEDY 53 

foreign to our own ideas of a confession of love, 
though its meanings are often hidden, and its 
symbols often mystical, yet it is exquisite with 
rich homage and replete with spiritual meanings. 

Beatrice died when Dante was twenty -five, 
yet all through the remaining thirty -one years of 
his life the memory of her led and swayed him. 
Two years after her death he plans to write a 
larger work than the "Vita Nuova " in her honor. 

The "Vita Nuova" ends with these words: — 

A wonderful vision appeared to me, in which I saw things 
which made me resolve to speak no more of this blessed 
one [Beatrice] until I could more worthily treat of her. And 
to attain to this, I study to the utmost of my power, as she 
truly knows. So that, if it shall please Him through whom 
all things live, that my life be prolonged for some years, 
I hope to say of her what was never said of any woman. 

Boccaccio in his life of Dante tells us that the 
"Divine Comedy" was begun in Dante's thirty- 
fifth year, that it was then interrupted by his 
exile, and was resumed later. 

He "in his thirty -fifth year," he says, "began 
to devote himself to carrying into effect that 
upon which he had been meditating, namely, to 
rebuke and glorify the lives of men, according 
to their different deserts." 

But though it is evident from his own and 
Boccaccio's testimony that the "Divine Com- 



54 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

edy" was planned early in Dante's life, it is 
evident, too, that the "Divine Comedy" as we 
know it could not have been written by the 
young Dante; could only have been written, 
indeed, out of those later "agonies of heart and 
brain" — out of the suffering and "hate of 
wTong" which came to him during the years of 
his exile. 

We have spoken of the two great forces, the 
love and hate which notably moulded the char- 
acter of Dante, his love of Beatrice and his 
hatred of the injustice of men. At first we note 
these two are held separate in his life, as they are 
kept distinct in his writings. The young Dante 
is supremely the lover of Beatrice. Dante of 
somewhat later years is supremely the hater of 
injustice — such injustice as he saw in the tjTan- 
nies and unequal governments of his own day. 
But as years rolled by, his love and his hate took 
on a certain relation to each other. His keen 
and bitter judgments of men were illumined 
more and more by that spiritual insight with 
which love had endowed him. 

So the two main experiences of his life, which 
might be summed up as his love of beauty and 
goodness and his hatred of injustice and sin, 
flow into one channel, and mingle in the "Divine 
Comedy." In it we find the uncompromising 



THE DIVINE COMEDY 55 

sternness of the Dante of later years, com- 
mingled with all the pity and tenderness of 
Dante, the lover of Beatrice. Carlyle, writing of 
him, says: "I know not in the world an affection 
equal to that of Dante. It is a teoderness, a 
trembling, longing, pitying love, like the wail of 
^olian harps, soft, soft like a child's young 
heart." 

This Dante, who has known such storm and 
stress, who has fought for justice so bitterly, so 
sternly, yet often in his journey through the 
inferno swoons for very pity of the just punish- 
ments he there witnesses. At sight of Paolo and 
Francesca de Rimini's sorrowful love and their 
pitiful doom he bows down his face, we are told. 

And so long did I hold it down that at last the Poet [Virgil 
who was his guide] said to me :" Of what art thou thinking ? " 
When I answered, I began: *'Ah me! How many tender 
thoughts, how much fond desire, led them to this woeful 
pass!" . . . Then I turned again to them, and I spake and 
began: "Francesca, thy sufferings make me sad, and full of 
pity, even to tears.'* 

He then asks Francesca further concerning 
her love. As she finishes telling him the touch- 
ing story, the effect of the recital on Dante is 
such, he tells us, that — 

... for pity, 
I swooned away as if I had been dying. 
And fell, even as a dead body falls. 



56 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

Indeed, everywhere throughout the poem are 
evidences of Dante's gentleness and his pity. 
Yet not less notable are those fearful evidences 
of his stern sense of justice. Stern and sweet; 
never perhaps in one man, certainly never in one 
book, are such sternness and such sweetness to 
be found. "Infinite pity, yet also infinite rigour 
of law; it is so Nature is made; it is so Dante 
discerned that she was made," says Carlyle, 
and it might be added that out of such discern- 
ment was Dante's own nature fashioned. 

THE TITLE OF THE BOOK 

It may seem to some strange that a book deal- 
ing seriously with the most serious questions of 
life should be called a "comedy." In a letter 
attributed to Dante he sets out the meaning of 
the word as it was accepted in his own times : — 

Comedy . . . differs from tragedy in its matter, in this 
way, — that tragedy in its beginning is admirable and quiet, 
in its ending or catastrophe foul and horrible. . . . Comedy, 
on the other hand, begins with adverse circumstances, but 
its theme has a happy termination. 

The "Divine Comedy" begins with adverse 
circumstances, but its theme has a happy termi- 
nation. This in its simplest form is the plan of 
it: it is the story of a journey which Dante and 
his friend and teacher, Virgil, at the heavenly 



THE DIVINE COMEDY 57 

bidding of Beatrice, make through those three 
worlds which Dante believed awaited the soul 
at death. 

Scartazzini, one of the ablest of Dante com- 
mentators, remarking on the form adopted by 
Dante, says: "The form of a journey through 
the realms of the next world was suggested to 
him by the age in which he lived; the literature 
of that age is so full of visions of the future 
state, of descriptions in prose and poetry of the 
torments and the bliss of eternity, that it were 
childish to ask which of these visions and 
legends Dante may have known and used. No 
doubt he knew many of them." 

Yet, if we would understand even the form of 
the "Divine Comedy," it were well to study a 
little these "visions and legends" which were so 
common in his day. To do this we shall need to 
leave many of our modern ideas and beliefs and 
prejudices behind us, and travel back in thought 
to those times and beliefs in the midst of which 
Dante wrote. It is difficult, a real task of the 
intellect, for the modern mind to conceive or 
realize men's beliefs exactly as they existed in 
that day. Indeed, it is perhaps not possible for 
us to realize them fully; for the intervening cen- 
turies have wrought upon us, and the experience 
and thought of many generations have obliter- 



58 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

ated or softened some of the most pronounced 
and strongly colored of the old beliefs. The 
modern mind, however much it may cherish su- 
perstitions of its own, is freed so largely from 
those particular superstitions and conditions in 
the midst of which Dante lived that it can hardly 
realize the willingness and simplicity with which 
the great mass of the people, as well as many of 
the more learned, accepted the mediaeval en- 
tirely materialistic conception of hell, purga- 
tory, and heaven. 

While Dante summed up and as it were coor- 
dinated the popular beliefs of his day, yet before 
he wrote there had not lacked other writers who 
had taken pains to give not a symbolic or poet- 
ical description, but rather what were claimed 
by many to be literal and authentic accounts 
of hell, purgatory, and heaven. As the heaven 
described by these writers was one to satisfy the 
senses — containing trees which bore twelve 
kinds of fruits; odors so sweet that the senses 
swooned with pleasure, etc., so there did not 
lack writers who allied fanaticism and ingenuity 
to describe a place of terrible torture, where, 
however inconsistently, "immaterial spirits suf- 
fered bodily and material torments. ... Of that 
which hell, purgatory, heaven were in popular 
opinion during the Middle Ages, Dante was but 



THE DIVINE COMEDY 59 

the full, deep, concentrated expression; what he 
embodied in verse, all men believed, feared, 
hoped." 1 

The purgatory of St. Patrick, the vision of the 
priest Wakelin, recounted as authentic in eccle- 
siastical history, the hell of St. Brandon are all 
well known. Some accept, too, as sincere the 
account of one Alberic, a monk of Monte Cas- 
sino. The hell he describes is drawn with great 
detail, and, because of his profession, with a 
greater presumption of authority, doubtless, than 
can be said to belong to that of Dante. 

The hell of the monk Alberic was shown to 
him, it is told, by St. Peter and two angels. St. 
Peter tells him that he shall see the least tor- 
ments first, and " afterward successively the more 
terrible punishments of the other world." He 
comes then to the "least" of the torments, 
which is that of infants and little children who 
are purged "in red-hot burning cinders and 
boiling vapour; those of one year old being 
subjected to this torment during seven days; 
those of two years, fourteen days; and so on, in 
proportion to their age." Other torments in- 
creasing in horror are then carefully described. 
Further along, the monk is shown the "torment 
of the ladders," red-hot ladders on which sinners 

1 Milman's History of Latin Christianity, 



60 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

were doomed to climb, with the alternative of 
clinging to the red-hot bars, or falling into great 
boilers of melted oil, pitch, or resin. This 
account might be extended indefinitely from a 
great mass and assortment of skillfully devised 
tortures. The existence of such tortures was, we 
are told, taught not only by many a devout 
priest of the mediaeval Church, but was accepted 
generally without revulsion by laymen of all 
classes. The contrast with our own less literal 
times is obvious enough. 

It may be objected by some that Dante was 
not entirely in line with the Church of his day. 
It is not to be forgotten that in 1329 (but 
a few years after the poet's death) Cardinal 
Poggetto caused some of Dante's works to be 
publicly burned, and proposed to dig up and 
burn the bones of the famous man on the ground 
that Dante was a heretic. But it was not to 
Dante's descriptions of hell, we know, that the 
cardinal objected. It was rather that Dante 
held, it was thought, dangerous ideals of govern- 
ment; and would have presumed to tell popes 
how to conduct their state. 

So, while he was hated or condemned for this, 
and for his bold condemnation of those who, 
whether in humble or high places, failed of 
their sacred trust, not one voice that we know of 



THE DIVINE COMEDY i 61 

was raised in protest that his descriptions of the 
torments of hell were either unlikely or out of 
line with the teachings of the Church. Some of 
the simpler-minded of his times believed he had 
actually been in hell. They used to point to him 
in the streets; and the mothers would show him 
to their children: "See how his skin is dark and 
his hair crisped; that is with the fires of hell 
which he has visited." Carlyle, in speaking of 
the mediaeval and material hell as believed in by 
Dante and his contemporaries, says: "He no 
more doubted of it, and that he himself would 
see it, than we doubt that we would see Constan- 
tinople if we went thither." 

Though we may disagree with this and may 
choose to believe that Dante wrote poetically 
and not literally of his own beliefs, the beliefs of 
the masses of the people of that day cannot fairly 
be so softened. Given the painstaking descrip- 
tions written down by good men of the Church, 
reading the accounts given by sincere priests 
and monks, the entire literalness of the medi- 
aeval conception of hell cannot be fairly denied. 
In fairness, however, it should not be looked on 
as a thing apart, but rather as a consistent part 
of those ages, if terrible, yet magnificent as well, 
to which we give the generalizing title "medi- 
seval." These are the " fiends and dragons on the 



62 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

gargoyled eaves" of a structure which rises 
nevertheless in grandeur and dignity. 

Dante writes, then, of paradise, purgatory, 
hell in no indefinite way, but clearly, giving 
details, startling enough to us, but by no means 
unfamiliar to men and women of his own times. 
It is these men and women and these times that 
we must keep in mind in studying the story. 

THE STORY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY 

The story, briefly, of the "Divine Comedy" is 
as follows: — 

At nightfall of Good Friday in the year ISOO 
Dante finds himself in a dark wood (said to 
symbolize the wood of sin), threatened by wild 
beasts (these beasts the commentators tell us 
symbolize Pride, Avarice, and Sensual Pleasure) ; 
Dante knows neither where to turn nor what to 
do to save himself from them. At this point, 
there appears to him the pagan poet Virgil 
(here generally supposed to symbolize Intellect 
or Reason) , who offers to direct his steps, and to 
guide him through the world of departed spirits. 
Dante, even while accepting the offer, fears to 
go on so dread a journey. Virgil then tells him 
that he has come to Dante at the instigation of 
Beatrice, one of the blessed in heaven, who has 
sent him. 



THE DIVINE COMEDY 63 

Reassured at this word from his dead lady, 
Dante accepts the offer of Virgil's guidance, and 
they enter the inferno. 

Over the gates of this dread place stands this 
inscription (I ask you to note it very especially, 
as it will help us later to determine the great 
underlying meaning of the poem, and the poet's 
message) : — 

Justice moved my Great Maker to build me. The Divine 
Omnipotence, the Highest Wisdom, and the Primal Love 
made me. . . . Abandon all hope ye who enter in. 

The two poets, Virgil and Dante, now descend 
into a great region shaped like a vast inverted 
truncated cone. It consists of nine concentric 
circles which diminish successively in circum- 
ference. Each of the nine circles is presided over 
by particular demons and in each one distinct 
classes of human beings, countless in number, who 
have sinned in the flesh, are variously punished. 

In the larger and upper circles the punish- 
ments are lighter and less dire (we are reminded 
here of the monk Alberic), being for those who 
have sinned not through selfishness but rather 
through negligence or love. In the lower and 
narrower circles are punished more heavily the 
heavier sins of selfishness, such as gluttony, 
avarice, prodigality, wrath, etc. Deeper still are 
punished sins of violence, such as murder, sui- 



64 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

cide, etc., and, deeper yet, sins of malice; here 
are the hypocrites of all classes, falsifiers, false 
witnesses, and traitors. At the very bottom of 
the inferno, frozen in a lake of ice, is Lucifer the 
arch-traitor, the angel who in old legend turned 
traitor to God, and led a rebel host against the 
Almighty. 

Having passed through all the circles of the 
inferno, and having witnessed there with pity 
and horror the punishment of countless souls, 
many of whom Dante knows and speaks with, 
the two poets make their way through a long 
subterranean passage, once more to the light of 
the stars. This is at daybreak of Easter morning. 

They find themselves on the seashore at the 
foot of a vast mountain, the Mountain of Purga- 
tory. The scene is beautiful and peaceful, and 
Venus, the star of love, shines in the dawn. 

They beg of the guardian of purgatory per- 
mission to enter on the ascent of the mountain, 
and their request is granted. With the dew of 
the morning Virgil washes away the stain of 
tears and the smoke of the inferno from the face 
of Dante and they begin the ascent. 

The purgatory is an island mountain, a place, 
as the name indicates, of purgation, a place in 
which by being purged of sin one is prepared 
for eternal blessedness. 



THE DIVINE COMEDY, 65 

As the inferno was built in descending cir- 
cles, the purgatory is formed of terraces which 
ascend. At the approach to each of these ter- 
races an angel is stationed, who, to comfort the 
penitents, chants appropriately one of the Beati- 
tudes. The Angel of Humility, for instance, 
stands at the entrance to that terrace where 
pride is purged and sings, "Blessed are the poor 
in spirit." At the entrance to the terrace where 
the sin of wrath is purged stands the Angel of 
Peace, singing, "Blessed are the peacemakers," 
etc., etc. 

Following much the same plan observed in the 
inferno, on the broader and lower terraces of the 
mount of purgatory are those souls which are to 
be purged of the sins of negligence, of pride, of 
envy, and anger; on the higher and steeper ter- 
races are those who do penance for the sins of 
avarice and prodigality, of sloth, of gluttony, of 
sensuality, etc., etc. 

On each of the terraces the poets pause to 
witness the penance of the sinful but repentant 
souls, who speak with them and question them. 
At last they come to the summit of the moun- 
tain. Here Virgil leaves Dante. Dante is told 
that from henceforth it is not Virgil, but Beatrice 
who shall guide him. 

In the journey through paradise, Beatrice 



66 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

leads Dante from sphere to sphere, through the 
nine heavens of the blessed. Here he sees the 
souls of those who have sought honor and the 
esteem of their fellowmen. These press around 
Dante, longing to be of service to him and to 
impart to him some of their light. Farther on, 
in the third heaven, he sees those blessed souls 
who have given themselves to love; next, he sees 
those who have turned other souls to righteous- 
ness; those who have fought for Christ; next, 
those souls of the upright, kings and rulers who 
have given themselves to justice; still farther 
on, the seventh heaven, of contemplation; and 
beyond this, the heaven of Christ and his apos- 
tles; — and still beyond this, Dante is fin- 
ally shown that crystalline heaven where God 
Himself dwells with the angelic host. 

The long journey over, Dante now obtains 
permission to remain in the contemplation of 
God. Having reached this, which he believes to 
be the highest aim of man, the story of the 
journey closes and the poem ends. 

WHY IS THE "divine COMEDY " SO GREAT? 

There are to-day more students of Dante than 
ever before; the fame of this work grows rather 
than lessens with the passing centuries. This 
poem, which seems in one light so strangely. 



THE DIVINE COMEDY 67 

fearfully materialistic, sways men and satis- 
fies their souls as no mere material thing could 
ever do. When we study it carefully the reason 
is plain. This "Divine Comedy," for all its 
strange and quaint devices, belonging to an age 
so different from our own, is not only a thing 
of intensely human interest, but, despite all the 
apparent materialism of its detail, is intensely 
spiritual at the core. Dante saw clearly, more 
clearly, perhaps, than any one else has ever 
seen them, the material and spiritual conse- 
quences of sin. He saw the great natural laws 
of cause and effect, reward and punishment, 
working through men's vices and virtues. And 
just here we come close to the great understruc- 
ture of the whole vast poem. This Dante, who 
dwelt at such length on the details of punish- 
ment and reward, had, you remember, a very 
passion for justice. He had suffered injustice 
himself at the hands of his fellowmen. In the 
world about him he saw injustice triumph. He 
had known the lawlessness and prejudice and dis- 
order of petty and warring factions. He had seen 
unfair sentence meted out by powerful and un- 
just hands; he himself had been robbed and 
despised, and that by the very city he had 
cherished. But like all truly great men he could 
see beyond the personal experience and grasp 



68 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

the universal truth; he could see beyond the 
result of men's sins as they affected his own life, 
and could see the larger effect of sin, and could 
set himself to find its larger remedy. Despite 
his own experience of injustice, he knew that 
God's laws stood sure, let the world disregard 
them as it chose. God was not mocked, not even 
by all the follies and mockeries of life. Under the 
tumult of men's sins and failings lay the eternal 
order. In the unseen worlds, in the worlds of 
the spirit, there God's justice must, he knew, 
prevail. 

Reason and Love (you remember, Reason is 
symbolized by his beloved poet Virgil, and Love 
by Beatrice) had guided his spirit and had 
shown him the workings of this great divine 
justice. In honor of his lady and for the good of 
men's souls, he would write of this justice for all 
men to read. This was the truth he knew and 
knew best. It was this truth he would set him- 
self to reveal, to interpret to others. 

dante's own explanation 
You will note that the poem was cast in a form 
which all could understand. Dante wrote it not 
in Latin for scholars. He wrote it in Italian, the 
popular, the "vulgar" tongue, that all men 
might read it. And by using the. form of those 



THE DIVINE COMEDY 69 

three spiritual worlds believed in so firmly and 
literally by the people of his age, he would the 
more surely be able to make known to many 
that which Reason, in the form of Virgil (or 
interpret it more broadly and you have not Vir- 
gil, but all that reason stands for, books or read- 
ing or experience or reasoning of the intellect), 
and Love, in the form of Beatrice (and interpret 
this broadly and you have sympathy, pity, 
understanding, yearning), had revealed to him 
concerning justice; not justice as administered 
faultily by man, but justice as established by 
God. It is plainly justice which he himself 
names as the whole underlying idea and motif of 
the poem — reward and punishment justly ad- 
ministered. 

To his friend Can Grande, to whom Dante 
dictates the "Paradiso," he writes this clear 
statement : — 

The subject of this work must be understood as taken 
literally [to the letter] and then as interpreted symbolically 
[according to the allegorical meaning]. The subject, then, 
of the whole work, taken literally, is simply a considera- 
tion of the state of souls after death. . . . But if the work 
is considered symbolically [according to its allegorical 
meaning], the subject is man, liable to the reward or punish- 
ment of justice. 

It was written, moreover, with the highest 
possible purpose, the highest purpose that any 



70 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

author can have. In the same letter, the one 
already quoted, Dante says : — 

The aim of the work is to remove those living in this life 
from a state of misery, and to guide them to a state of hap- 
piness. 

Here, then, and set out in his own words, are 
the plan and purpose of the "Divine Comedy." 
All this helps immensely to an understanding of 
the book. 

However literally many of the people of 
Dante's day may have taken the poem, we of 
a later day inevitably lay greatest stress on its 
symbolism and spiritual meanings. It revolts us 
somewhat, perhaps, as it very probably did not 
the people of that age, to read of the envious, 
for instance, — those who do penance for envy, — 
as seated like blind men against a cliff in purga- 
tory, with their eyes sewed up with wire. But if 
we look at this as a mere figure, as something in 
whose actuality we in no way believe, we come 
even all the more surely to its inner meaning, 
and find it to be a symbol of deep truth. Envy is 
that sin in us which allows us to look with greed 
on the blessings of others. Dante knows that 
the soul in whom the sin of envy is to be cor- 
rected must give up such envious sight. So in 
the "Purgatorio" the envious sit with their eyes 
closed; it is their penance. In their ears ring the 



THE DIVINE COMEDY 71 

warning voices of those who have sinned greatly 
in envy. It is these warning sinners, together 
with the gentle Angel of Brotherly Love, who 
help to teach them, in time, to renounce envy. 
You see how complete and well planned the thing 
is. Not only as penance, but as cure for the sin of 
envy, what better could we have? — and note, 
too, the exact justice of it. 

This is only one instance. Everywhere 
throughout this great and carefully conceived 
book, we find similar spiritual truths, clothed in 
a like careful symbolism, and God's great spir- 
itual laws as truthfully interpreted. However 
given to pity for those who suffer the conse- 
quences of sin Dante himself may be, — and 
again and again his paty overcomes him, — 
yet his pity never clouds his clear vision of that 
higher justice which throughout these three 
worlds of his writing he sees operate unfailingly. 

He is no sentimentalist, this Dante. He is 
determined to tell the truth as it has been 
revealed to him, be that truth pleasing or awful. 
He will gloze over nothing. Those for whom he 
writes this "Divine Comedy" are to be "guided 
from misery to happiness," never by avoiding 
but always by fulfilling God's law. We are to 
receive the full wages of sin and nothing less. 
Forgiveness of sin (he has no such gentle inter- 



72 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

pretation of forgiveness as is common to many 
of us) , forgiveness of sin, in his stern vision, is not 
to be given by man or friend or priest, or even 
by God. Sin is to be purged and done away with 
only by the personal, painful, and resolute ac- 
quirement and practice of virtue. In the same 
manner, Dante would have men see the con- 
sistent, lawful, just rewards of blessedness, given 
in just degree only to those who by their vir- 
tue have earned them. 

If we turn back now to the inscription over the 
entrance to the inferno, its deeper meaning is 
clear: "Justice moved my Great Maker to build 
me. The Divine Omnipotence, the Highest 
Wisdom and the Primal Love made me. . . . 
Abandon all hope ye who enter in." 

In the world in which Dante lived there were 
those who escaped the punishment of sin, but in 
God's more spiritual worlds Dante believed this 
was not so. There the consequences of sin were 
sure, and were ordered in the beginning by 
Divine Omnipotence, the Highest Wisdom, and 
Primal Love. Such consequences, he conceived, 
are a part of the consistent law of God, and the 
law of God is eternal and unchanging. Abandon 
all hope. You shall in no wise change, nor alter, 
nor escape the results of sin. 

This stern, clear vision of the working of 



THE DIVINE COMEDY 73 

God's eternal laws is the more remarkable when 
we remember that it was attained in a corrupt 
age, when the very Church itself, the generally 
admitted spiritual force of the day, was not 
without its grave faults. It was not a very great 
while before that the divine command had come 
to the saintly Francis of Assisi: "Rebuild my 
Church." If it was in a less saintly spirit, it was 
not in a less earnest one that Dante lent his own 
hand to the matter. 

The "Divine Comedy" was written in part 
during the "pontificate of the Frenchman John 
XXII, the reproof of whose simony Dante puts 
into the mouth of St. Peter, who declares his 
seat vacant ["Paradiso," xxvii], whose damna- 
tion the poet himself seems to prophesy ["In- 
ferno," xi], and against whose election he had 
endeavored to persuade the cardinals in a 
vehement letter." 

In describing the Church as it was at the 
beginning of the thirteenth century a Catholic 
writer tells us, in speaking of the rich gifts given 
by powerful princes to win the favor of ecclesi- 
astics, "Thus it was not through faith entirely 
that the Church became rich and temporally 
powerful." 

Dante must have found himself oppressed in 
spirit, and to quote further the same author, "as 



74 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

all good men were, in a world where simony was 
almost the rule, and high and feudal lords and 
barons, ecclesiastical and secular, were playing 
the part of Judas for power and riches." 

In the nineteenth canto of the "Inferno," 
Dante gives himself over boldly to the condem- 
nation of the vice of simony — the selling of 
spiritual gifts for worldly consideration. He 
shows the simoniac popes and priests as receiv- 
ing the full penalty of their sins, even like the 
rest of mankind, and reproaches them bitterly. 
Here in the "Divine Comedy," in his fierce 
vision and conception of justice, is no exemption 
from the workings of God's justice; no, not 
though the sinners be the earthly representatives 
and ministers of God. Here are God's great and 
just and, therefore, loving laws, working as they 
have always worked, unchanging, Dante con- 
ceives them, as God Himself is unchanging; and 
like God "without shadow of turning," depend- 
able, inevitable, merciful in their very exactness. 
Throughout the entire poem with its record of 
unnumbered souls, not one soul, either for the 
consideration of power or prestige or wealth or 
holy office, escapes what Dante conceives to be 
its ordered and lawful and just doom. 

Yet in dwelling on Dante's stern sense of jus- 
tice, it must not be forgotten that Dante con- 



THE DIVINE COMEDY 75 

ceived of justice and love working together, in 
God's laws. Not alone Justice, but Highest 
Wisdom and Love, he tells us, established the 
order of God's law, whereby it is given man, as it 
is given no other creature, to choose between good 
and evil, reaping the consequences of each. 

THE MOST REMARKABLE FEATURE OF THE 
*' DIVINE comedy" 

Each great book contains something distinc- 
tive, some "fine flavor," some new or different or 
striking interpretation of life; it has some essen- 
tial feature which distinguishes it from all other 
books. 

The most remarkable feature of the "Divine 
Comedy" is Dante's clear vision of the identity 
of the sin with its punishment. He carefully iden- 
tifies each sin with its peculiar, and what may be 
said to be its natural, punishment or result. The 
spirits in the first circle of the inferno, for in- 
stance, whose sin is that of indecision, are blown 
as are sands of the desert, — hither, thither, — 
and are condemned forever to follow an incon- 
stant fluctuating banner which floats before 
them, now here, now there. It reminds us of the 
old Jewish decree: "Wherewithal a man sinneth, 
by the same also shall he be punished." 

Those who have allowed themselves to be car- 



76 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

ried away by sensuality are blown in a whirling 
storm, like the storm of passion itself. Those 
who have taken their own lives, who have will- 
fully renounced life and motion, and the freedom 
to come and go in God's sunlit world, are, in the 
poet's vision, condemned to stand rooted to one 
place as trees in the dim and awful wood of the 
suicides. 

"Punishments," says Scartazzini, referring to 
the consistency of them in the "Divine Com- 
edy," "are developed into logical consistency 
from the sin itself. . . . No single punishment has 
been described by Dante solely in order to stim- 
ulate the fancy and inspire terror, but only such 
as result, with the necessity of natural laws, 
from the nature of the sins. That he, a child of 
the Middle Age, should have risen to a concep- 
tion which even at the present day is philosoph- 
ically incontestable, shows his true greatness 
and makes him stand alone in his own time, 
which, indeed, could not understand him. . . . 
Thus Dante's 'Hell ' proposes to answer the ques- 
tion, what sin is in its essence, and what fruit 
it bears in time and eternity. If a man has once 
recognized that sin is a hateful thing which 
deforms body and soul, and at the same time 
a horribly cruel tormentor which tortures the 
sinner without remission in time and eternity, 



THE DIVINE COMEDY 77 

the yearning after redemption must awaken in 
him, so that in anxiety for his own salvation he 
asks, *What must I do to become free from sin?' 
To answer this question is the aim of the * Pur- 
gatory.'" 

When we pass on to the "Purgatorio," we 
find a not less clear sense of justice. Here, in 
describing the soul's effective penitence, we find 
Dante equally just. Here the proud who are 
striving to purge away the sins of pride (those 
who on earth held their heads so high) are bent 
under burdens that force their proud heads to 
bow, and so teach them humility. On the very 
paths they tread are pictured, in marble, types 
of proud men and women, on which they must 
tread, even as they must tread on their own arro- 
gance before they can become purged of the sins 
of pride. The angry whose anger has blinded 
them are (as a consequence and penance of their 
sin) wrapped in a dense smoke and must, ere 
they can be rid of their sin, exercise themselves 
in gentleness and kindness. The lazy must be 
busily active; the gluttons must practice absti- 
nence. In each case these sinners must regard 
and study other examples of their own vice; 
they are thus forced to use their reason. They 
mustVatch the same vice operative in other 
lives; they must contemplate, too, examples of 



78 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

the corrective virtue they are striving to attain. 
You see the consistency and the unfailing justice 
of it all. 

Instance after instance might be given further, 
but enough has been quoted to point out some- 
what the clear, just vision that Dante had of sin 
and virtue and their consequences. He tells us of 
each as a thing governed, as all other things are 
governed finally, by God's order and justice. 
He shows us sin rationalized, as it were, pun- 
ished by its consistent unavoidable consequence 
and result. Here is not found mentioned pardon 
in the ordinary sense; neither indulgence nor 
any canceling whatsoever of the just and awful 
consequences of sin; to the punishments or 
rewards herein shown there is lent no deterring 
hand. Here in Dante's vision is found, rather, 
the soul itself tasting for itself pure justice, ex- 
cused from nothing, mounting the difficult way, 
enduring the just punishments, performing the 
required and long and painful tasks. There has 
not been before, it is unlikely there will ever be 
again, so wonderful a conception of justice and of 
man's human relation to a just God. And Dante 
somehow conveys to us that this God of whom 
he writes is, not despite his justice, but exactly 
because of it, a loving God. It is this justice, this 
fair dealing between God and man, that gives to 



THE DIVINE COMEDY 79 

man in Dante's eyes his human dignity, and 
gives him, almost, a kind of touching equality 
with God. 

THE UNDERLYING MEANING OF THE POEM 

By Dante's own assertion the chief thought 
underlying the entire "Divine Comedy" is 
Justice. This may be said to be the Epic of Jus- 
tice. Dante strives himself to be a just man. He 
contemplates and expounds justice. He insists 
on it; he shows it to us, now in this light, now in 
another. This is life as he has seen it; this is that 
part of life which has most impressed him, and 
which he chooses to reveal to us. 

The "Divine Comedy" is human in many 
ways — and strongly human in its appeal. It is 
human with tenderness, with pity, human in its 
vast understanding of human sin and virtue; but 
it is human most of all in this — in its call to 
the spirit for a love and understanding and prac- 
tice of justice. This love of justice and order and 
fairness, this innate longing toward reason — for 
reason is only a higher kind of justice — is some- 
thing common to us all. It is among the high 
ideals of human life. 

The world's great books are neither mere 
forms and fashions of imagination nor are they 
built on men's imaginings and speculations, — 



80 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

they are a very piece of life itself. They explain 
life and interpret it in such a way that all men 
may understand. Justice, as Dante interprets it, 
is God's law, nature 's law, and inwoven with the 
daily happenings of daily life. We see the working 
of it in all about us, in our friends, our compan- 
ions, ourselves. The glutton, the sensualist, the 
usurer, whether these be ourselves or others, are 
possessed of more than their sins, they are pos- 
sessed of those sins' inevitable consequences and 
cannot escape them; the unselfish, the humble, 
the pure in heart are possessed of more than their 
virtues and carry with them and cannot escape 
some of those just and consistent rewards which 
Dante pictured so vividly and symbolically in 
the "Divine Comedy." 

And as this justice of which Dante writes is 
neither pitiless nor merciless, but, as we under- 
stand it betta*, is revealed as something loving 
and wise, so Dante himself is to all those who 
come to know him well, not stern and harsh as 
he at first appears. He is, rather, one of those 
great souls who carry in their hearts a yearning 
love of their fellowmen; he would if he could 
lead them "from a state of misery and guide 
them to a state of happiness." 

It is Ruskin, a careful student of Dante, who 
declares that it is only shallow people who think 



THE DIVINE COMEDY 81 

Dante stern. And it might be added that it is 
only the shallow who would seem to find in the 
"Divine Comedy" a merely merciless justice. 
Those who study the poem and grasp its larger 
meaning will remember that this justice of which 
Dante writes so unflinchingly is not a fine fig- 
ment of his imagination, but is rather that which 
by divine establishment underlies the law and 
order of the world, and is the basis for all the 
onward progress of the spirit. They will recall 
that on it mainly is built the dignity of our 
human destiny and our human hopes. Turning 
once more to the inscription we noted at first, 
which Dante saw over the dread place of justice, 
they will read it with clearer insight and bet- 
ter understanding: "Justice moved my Great 
Maker to build me; the Divine Omnipotence, the 
Highest Wisdom, and the Primal Love, made 



me. 



CHAPTER VII 

GOETHE'S FAUST 

And when the storm in forests roars and grinds, 

The giant firs, in falling, neighbor boughs 

And neighbor trunks with crushing weight bear down, 

And falling, fill the hills with hollow thunders, — 

Then to the cave secure thou leadest me, 

Then show 'st me mine own self, and in my breast 

The deep, mysterious miracles unfold. 

And when the perfect moon before my gaze 

Comes up with soothing light, around me float 

From every precipice and thicket damp 

The silvery phantoms of the ages past 

ALud temper the austere delight of thought. 

Goethe's Faust, 
Translated by Bayabd Taylor. 

Here are the poets in their singing robes and here stand we, a 
very miscellaneous and dusty company by comparison. But through 
some heavenly hospitality we get presented to them. . . . And, 
marvellously enough ! we discover that the poets and ourselves are 
friends already : that we have always cared for the same things, 
kept the same ideals, loved beauty, and like poor Malvolio in the 
play thought " very nobly of the soul." All the past, as we listen, 
becomes a part of the moment's joy, and the long, long future beck- 
ons. We perceive that the longer we listen the deeper will be the 
charm, that the ear grows finer by hearing and the voices even more 
alluring and more wise ; for these are spiritual utterances, and are 
spiritually discerned. 

Bliss Perry. 

"Faust" is sometimes called the German 
"Divine Comedy." Yet it differs greatly from 
that work both in theme and form. Dante, living 
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, wrote 
the "Divine Comedy" and, using the mediseval 



GOETHE'S FAUST 8S 

symbols of his day, wrote of a soul's experience in 
its journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven. 
Goethe, living in the less mystical eighteenth 
and nineteenth centuries, wrote of a soul's expe- 
rience on its journey through earthly life. 

Goethe was born in 1749 and died in 1832, and 
into his eighty-three years were crowded rich 
and exceptional experiences of love, art, science, 
political and social power. To describe the 
experiences of his hero, Faust, Goethe might 
look into his own life and write. He was, it is 
said, a man well-nigh perfect physically and 
mentally, and added to this he possessed every 
advantage of social position, which gave him 
wide opportunity to use his natural gifts. 

To understand a great book we must under- 
stand something of the times in which it was 
written. The "Odyssey" reflects much of the 
serenity and beauty and beliefs of the early 
Greek ages; the "Divine Comedy" is colored 
with the gloom and creeds and superstitions of 
the Middle Ages; "Faust," written in a more 
modern, restless age, an age of intellectual as- 
pirations, scientific investigations, and religious 
questioning, is a very piece of that age, and 
richly colored by it. The drama of "Faust" is 
itself a kind of turbulent thing, broken into 
uneven scenes often difficult to understand, and 



84 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

sometimes one loses in its speculation and imag- 
ery the thread and theme of the story; so that 
unless one knows beforehand what to expect one 
is bewildered by its almost too great variety, 
which is so largely a result of the very restless- 
ness and questioning of that modern age in 
which Goethe lived. 

THE GREAT ART PERIODS 

In a study of literature, or of any of the fine 
arts, we must admit three great periods : first, the 
classic, under which general term we include 
those ideals of art which found their greatest 
perfection in the great age of Greece, an age the 
chief flower of which was a kind of bodily per- 
fection, a delight in a kind of strong and quiet 
and serene beauty. To this period belong, for 
instance, the "Odyssey," as literature; the 
Parthenon as architecture. Second: the mediae- 
val (literally the middle age) with its supersti- 
tions, its grotesque imagery, its despising of the 
body, its almost fanatical exaltation of the soul, 
its insistence on the imperfection of man, its 
passionate desire for spiritual development and 
reward, its fantastic belief in demons, evil spir- 
its, magic, enchantments, and the like. To this 
period belong the "Divine Comedy," some of 
the great mediaeval cathedrals with their niched 



GOETHE'S FAUST 85 

saints and gargoyle demons; and to this belong 
some of those fantastic detailed descriptions of 
hell and purgatory such as are found in the 
account given by the monk Alberic of Monte 
Cassino. And, third: the period of the Renais- 
sance, or Rebirth. To this belongs the rebirth 
of the old classic ideals which had long been 
superseded by the mediaeval. 

Pater speaks of the Renaissance as: "A many- 
sided but yet united movement, in which the love 
of the things of the intellect and the imagination 
for their own sake, the desire for a more liberal 
and comely way of conceiving life, make them- 
selves felt, urging those who experience this 
desire to search out first one and then another 
means of intellectual or imaginative enjoyment, 
and directing them not merely to the discovery 
of old and forgotten sources of this enjoyment, 
but to the divination of fresh sources thereof — 
new experiences, new subjects of poetry, new 
forms of art. . . . Here and there, under rare and 
happy conditions, in pointed architecture, in the 
doctrines of romantic love, in the poetry of Pro- 
vence, the rude strength of the Middle Age turns 
to sweetness; and the taste for sweetness gener- 
ated there becomes the seed of the classical 
revival in it, prompting it constantly to seek 
after the springs of perfect sweetness in the 



86 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

Hellenic world. And coming after a long period 
in which this instinct had been crushed, that 
true 'dark age,' in which so many sources of 
intellectual and imaginative enjoyment had 
actually disappeared, this outbreak is rightly 
called a Renaissance, a revival." 

"Faust" is an almost perfect type of this new 
era as it existed, not in the beginning — namely 
at the end of the twelfth century — but as it was 
affected in its later days by the modern thought 
of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 

In "Faust" we find classic and mediaeval 
interwoven, while running through , the fabric 
are threads of the new scientific and religious 
influences. When "Faust" was written, the 
modern age of bold questioning and research was 
well begun. 

If we keep all this in mind when we read 
"Faust," the great variety of it and the mixture 
of classic and mediaeval and modern forms will 
interest rather than bewilder us. 

THE STORY OF FAUST 

Goethe from early youth knew the old medi- 
aeval Faust legend, and when a boy not infre- 
quently saw it acted as a puppet play. The 
story, briefly, is that of a man — one Doctor 
Faustus gifted with powers of magic — who for 



GOETHE'S FAUST 87 

certain values received, certain worldly pleas- 
ures, etc., sold his soul to the Devil. Goethe's 
"Faust" is based on the old legend, but in detail 
and general handling differs widely from it. 

The play begins with a prologue in heaven in 
which Mephistopheles, the Spirit of Denial, is 
found sneering at the world as God has made 
it. He finds man a discontented and wretched 
enough creature. When God mentions Faust as 
a possible exception, and sees in Faust's "con- 
fused service" a promise of goodness, Mephis- 
topheles offers to wager that if he had permission 
to try his powers with Faust he could prove God 
wrong. 

Thereupon God gives Mephistopheles leave 
to deal with Faust. God does not say that Faust 
cannot be tempted to sin, but only that no 
material pleasure which Mephistopheles can 
offer will quench in Faust the instinctive spirit- 
ual aspiration toward good. If Mephistopheles 
does succeed in satisfying Faust with such 
worldly pleasures and powers as he is able to give 
him, the soul of Faust shall be his. 

The prologue ended, the drama itself begins. 

It is midnight of Easter eve. Faust, an old 
man, a doctor of science and philosophy and 
gifted with powers of magic, is in his study. The 
room is filled with books, objects of art, appara- 



88 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

tus for scientific investigation. It is a beautiful 
Gothic chamber, yet to Faust it is little better 
than a dungeon. He is bitterly dicontented with 
all his knowledge, nothing satisfies him, and his 
own life, despite its rich endowments, seems to 
him a wretched and worthless thing. 

To satisfy his longing he summons at last, by 
means of magic, the Earth Spirit, hoping to find 
through it a better understanding of the vast 
powers of life and some cure for his discontent. 
But his broken interview with the Earth Spirit 
leaves him still unsatisfied, and he returns to his 
wretchedness. Easter Day begins to dawn. By 
the pale light of it he sees on one of his shelves 
a vial of poison. This suggests to him an end to 
all his miseries. He takes down the poison, pours 
it into a crystal goblet, and raises the cup to his 
lips with a greeting to the dawn. 

But just as he is about to drink it, he hears, 
from a near-by church, an Easter hymn, and 
along the early air the sound of Easter bells. 
Memories of happy childhood and boyhood days 
sweep over him. The goblet drops from his hand. 

As the morning advances, Faust with one of 
his students walks abroad in the village where 
the Easter feast and merrymaking are in prog- 
ress. He is greeted on all sides by the villagers. 
It is evident he is a great and respected man. 



GOETHE'S FAUST 89 

In the course of his walk in the village and 
fields a poodle follows him and, when Faust 
returns to his study, returns with him. A kind 
of magic animal it is, for in time it begins to 
change form; it grows, swells, alters, and finally, 
out of the mist of transformation, changes into 
the form of Mephistopheles dressed in the garb 
of a traveling scholar. Mephistopheles has magic 
means, it appears, ready at his command, more 
even than has the learned Doctor Faust. After a 
discussion with Faust in which Mephistopheles 
sums up some of his theories of life, he summons 
spirits to lull Faust to sleep, and makes his escape. 
When he returns once more, he is arrayed in a 
scarlet costume and mantle like a man of the 
world, with a gay cock's feather in his hat. He 
urges Faust to array himself gayly also and come 
with him and try what the world is like. 

And I advise thee brief and jBat, 
To don the selfsame gay apparel. 
That from this den released and free. 
Life be at last revealed to thee. 

He advises Faust no longer to think and pon- 
der as has been his wont; he urges him to give 
up all his musty books and studies and to learn, 
rather, what it is to enjoy as the world enjoys. It 
is, he declares, a plunge into pleasure and gay- 
ety that Faust needs to give him a happier view 



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of life. Let him leave books and reflections 
behind and come with him. 

Then quick from all reflection flee. 
Come plmige into the world with me. 

The little world, and then the great we'll see. 

But Faust is scornful of this advice and is 
sure that the world's pleasures cannot satisfy 
him. He says, indeed, that were he ever to find 
a satisfying moment, he could wish that mo- 
ment were his last. 

K ever I stretch myself calm and composed on a couch 
be there at once an end of me. If thou canst ever delude 
me into being pleased with myself, or cheat me with en- 
joyment, be that day my last. If ever I say to the pass- 
ing moment, " Stay, thou art so fair," — then may'st 
thou bind me in thy bonds, and declare my final ruin. 

Mephistopheles takes Faust at his word and 
makes a compact with him on these terms. If 
ever he can satisfy the soul of Faust, that soul 
shall be his. The contract is signed and the two 
start out upon their adventures. 

Mephistopheles first takes Faust to Auer- 
bach's cellar, where a band of rough, carousing 
students drink and make merry. The scene is as 
coarse as we might have expected Mephistoph- 
eles to choose, but from it Faust only turns in 
disgust. 



GOETHE'S FAUST 91 

Mephistopheles then takes Faust to the 
Witch's Kitchen. Here by means of the witch's 
magic brew, Faust's youth is restored to him. 
He feels once more youth's fresh enthusiasms. 
Here, too, in a magic mirror Faust sees the image 
of a beautiful woman and lingers before it, but 
Mephistopheles promises to show him in the 
flesh one more beautiful still. 

From here on, with only one or two breaks, 
the beautiful and well-known story of Faust and 
Margaret proceeds. Margaret is a simple girl 
of the people. Faust sees her first as she comes 
from church and is charmed with her beauty. 
Mephistopheles to further the love affair takes 
Faust to Margaret's chamber while Margaret is 
not there. 

Faust is touched by the quiet loveliness and 
homelikeness of it, which suggests to him her 
own purity and simplicity. Mephistopheles 
brings from under his cloak a box of jewels, 
which he tells Faust to leave so as to interest and 
tempt the girl. Faust refuses to do this. It is 
Mephistopheles himself who hides them in the 
clothes-press. 

Soon after the two have left, Margaret re- 
turns. She finds the room sultry and close. It is 
as though, spiritually, she felt the murky influ- 
ence and presence of some evil. She finds the 



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jewels at last, however, and is interested and 
pleased. 

With the help of Margaret's neighbor, Martha, 
Mephistopheles arranges for the meeting of 
Faust and Margaret in Martha's garden. 

The love story progresses rapidly. At another 
meeting in Martha's garden, Faust begs to be 
alllowed to enter Margaret's home that night. 
But Margaret urges that she dares not allow 
him; her mother sleeps too lightly. She is over- 
persuaded at last, however, and is offered a 
harmless sleeping-potion to be given to her 
mother. Mephistopheles sees to it that the 
potion is such that Margaret's mother never 
wakens from her sleep. 

The love story turns now quickly into trag- 
edy. The first victim of the guilty love of Faust 
and Margaret is the mother; the second is Mar- 
garet's brother. He has been maddened by 
whispered gossip concerning his sister and her 
lover. He comes by chance on Faust serenading 
Margaret, challenges him, thrusts at him with 
his sword, but is killed by Faust. Faust must 
now flee for his life and Margaret is left to pay 
the penalty of her sin. 

Time passes. In the next scene Mephistoph- 
eles, to divert Faust and to make him forget 
Margaret, takes him to a festival of witches. 



GOETHE'S FAUST 93 

But in the midst of the revels Faust thinks he 
sees a vision of Margaret. He notes that she is 
pale and falters as she walks. Mephistopheles 
tries to turn Faust's attention from her, but in 
a later scene Faust, aware now of the fate 
and punishment which have befallen Margaret 
in his absence, demands that Mephistopheles 
take him to her that he may rescue her from 
prison. 

On magic horses he and Mephistopheles 
traverse the distance. But they come too late. 
Too long and too far tried by love and suffering, 
Margaret's mind wanders. Faust begs her to 
flee with him, but she remembers their love, 
dwells on it, and refuses to go. He urges her 
again. In a scene of the utmost beauty and 
pathos — one of the great scenes of all literature 
it is — Faust strives to rescue her from her fate, 
but,^ her mind still wandering between the old 
happiness and the present misery, she refuses to 
go with him. Mephistopheles comes to urge 
Faust to leave Margaret to her doom and save 
himself. Margaret recognizes some evil power in 
Mephistopheles. She shrinks from him and casts 
herself upon the judgment and mercy of God 
and dies. Her last thought is not for herself but 
for Faust. 



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Thine am I, Father! rescue me! 
Ye angels, holy cohorts, guard me. 
Camp around, and from evil ward me! 
Henry ! I shudder to think of thee. 

This ends the First Part of the drama. 

THE LARGER WORLD 

It should be remembered that Mephistoph- 
eles promised Faust that they would "together 
see the little world and then the great." 

The little world we must look upon as the 
world of Faust's individual passion, emotion, 
and aspiration. In this little world his love for 
Margaret, with all the personal emotion and 
joy and suffering that it brings, is the supreme 
event. The final result of his personal love and 
personal selfishness, namely, Margaret's death, is 
fittingly the end of the entirely personal experi- 
ence. The rest of Mephistopheles's promise is yet 
to be fulfilled. Faust is now to see the "great 
world." He is to see public life with its lives of 
many men and is to be put in relation to these 
lives. He is to see that "great world," where the 
interest and passion which shape society, govern- 
ment, and the development of the human race 
are set in motion to solve the problem of Faust's 
destiny. 

There is much said of the obscurity of the 
Second Part of the drama and of the difficulty 



GOETHE'S FAUST 95 

of understanding its intricate and subtle mean- 
ings. It is difficult to read and understand. That 
is quite true. But so are the greater world and 
public life and government and society difficult 
to understand when we come to deal with them. 
In youth, when we live only in our own intensely 
personal world, the happenings and meanings 
of that world are apt to stand out clear; but 
when our interests mingle with the great world- 
interests, with science, government, war, civics, 
politics, finance, matters of state, and great 
human enterprise, and when, like Faust, man 
tries to find among all these things that soul- 
content which Faust was trying to find, the 
meanings and interests of this greater world are 
often enough difficult to understand. 

So the Second Part of "Faust," far from being, 
as some would assert, less great than the first 
part because it is less clear, is perhaps all the 
greater in that it deals, not inadequately yet 
intricately, with those far larger and intricate 
experiences of a soul whose motives mingle with 
the larger human life about it. 

The following, quoted from Bayard Taylor's 
introduction to his translation of the second part, 
is helpful: "The Second Part opens abruptly 
in a broad, bright crowded world; we not only 
breathe a new atmosphere, but we come back to 



96 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

Faust and Mephistopheles as if after a separa- 
tion of many years, and find that our former 
acquaintances have changed in the interval, even 
as ourselves. 'It must be remembered/ says 
Goethe, 'that the First Part is the development 
of a somewhat obscure individual condition. It 
is almost wholly subjective; it is the expres- 
sion of a confused, restricted, and passionate 
nature.'" Goethe himself, Taylor continues, 
"expressly declares that the Second Part of the 
drama must be performed upon a different, a 
broader, and more elevated stage of action; that 
one who has not lived in the world and acquired 
some experience will not know how to compre- 
hend it; and that, like an involved riddle it will 
repeatedly allure the reader to the renewed 
study of its secret meanings." Taylor then 
asserts very justly that "no commentary can 
exhaust the suggestiveness of the work. . . . 
With all that the critics have accomplished, 
they have still left enough untouched to allow 
fresh discoveries to every sympathetic reader. 
There are circles within circles, forms which 
beckon and then disappear; and when we seem 
to have reached the bottom of the author's mean- 
ing, we suspect that there is still something be- 
yond." Taylor likens the Second Part to "a 
great mosaic which, looked at near at hand, shows 



GOETHE'S FAUST 97 

us the mixture of precious marbles, common 
pebbles, of glass, jasper, and lapis-lazuli; but 
seen in the proper perspective, exhibits only the 
titanic struggle of Man, surrounded with shapes 
of Beauty and Darkness, toward a victorious 
immortality." Changing his metaphor he says 
later: "The reader to whom this book is a new 
land, must of necessity be furnished with a com- 
pass and an outline chart before he enters it. He 
may otherwise lose his way in its tropical jun- 
gles, before reaching that 'peak in Darien ' from 
which Keats, like Balboa, beheld a new side of 
the world." 

It would, indeed, be a mistake to attempt any 
serious study of the Second Part without a good 
commentary. For it is frequently difficult, even 
for the accustomed student, to understand its 
references and symbols. 

Yet when we study the general plan of the 
Second Part, not in detail but in outline merely, 
we find that plan not less clear and definite than 
that of the First Part. Here, too, as there, but 
on a grander scale, Mephistopheles is shown 
trying to satisfy Faust; choosing for him experi- 
ences which he thinks will give him pleasure; 
attempting to find for him the moment which 
Faust shall wish to detain, and in so doing shall 
forfeit his soul to Mephistopheles. 



98 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

"The former world is at an end, and after an 
opening scene which symbohzes the healing 
influences of Time and Nature, Faust and his 
companion appear at the court of the German 
Emperor." 

Here Faust is shown by Mephistopheles that 
part of the greater world which lies in wealth 
and pleasure and splendor. In a magnificent 
scene of court masquerade the whole world of 
folly and pleasure goes by, symbolized in all 
manner and types of people. Faust, meantime, 
is given a place of honor at the Emperor's court, 
while Mephistopheles contents himself with be- 
ing Court Fool. The realm is in need of money. 
By means of magic Mephistopheles sets anew 
financial system on foot. The land becomes sud- 
denly prosperous and Faust and Mephistopheles 
reap the reward of their power and become 
important personages at the Emperor's side. 

But as mere money and worldly gayety cannot 
satisfy either the greedy Emperor or the court or 
Faust, nor the world in general, there arises a 
new symbol in the drama — a new desire — 
the desire for Beauty. Faust again by magic 
means is given the power to summon from 
the past Beauty, symbolized by Helen of Troy, 
the most beautiful woman in the world. Here 
again in symbols is the Renaissance, which is. 



GOETHE'S FAUST 99 

strictly speaking, the rebirth or revival of classic 
beauty. 

Goethe devoted much time to the study of the 
classic forms of art. It is interesting to remem- 
ber that during his lifetime some of the greatest 
of the great Greek sculptures were being discov- 
ered and restored to the world — the Venus de 
Milo in 1820, the Victory of Samothrace in 1826, 
the Discus Thrower in 1792, etc., etc. In 1801, 
Lord Elgin stirred the art world by removing 
to England from Greece some of the great and 
lately discovered Greek marbles. 

Just as Goethe himself at one period of his 
life devoted himself to classic art, so his hero 
Faust devotes himself to it as symbolized in the 
person of Helen. But potent as is Beauty, yet 
it has not the power to satisfy Faust. Helen 
is at last summoned once more to the lower 
ancient world, leaving only her mantle in Faust's 
hand. 

Worldly Pleasure, Science, Beauty have failed 
fully to satisfy Faust. He is now shown the 
world of Power, War, Glory, State, and Enter- 
prise. But years pass on and none of these things 
satisfy him. 

Then, at last, he throws his interest into a 
larger plan — a plan for bettering the conditions 
of his fellowmen. "Enlightened and elevated 



100 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

above his former self," he is "anxious for a grand 
and worthy sphere of activity. His aim is to bend 
nature to the service of man." His plan is to 
reclaim a wide stretch of land from the ocean 
which half submerges and wholly threatens it. 
By draining its poisonous marshes and protect- 
ing it from the sea by means of dikes, he intends 
to make it a place of beauty and health and use- 
fulness to man, " a free land on which may dwell 
a free people." 

A war takes place between two emperors. By 
magic means Faust gives the advantage to one 
of these, and then claims as his reward the sea 
strand which he desires to include in his great 
enterprise. For the great project really interests 
him. Here is something worth while to which he 
can devote his energies, a great work in which 
he can find satisfaction. 

But meantime years have passed. Faust is 
old. He is smitten with blindness. Though he 
gives his full energies to the present work for the 
benefit of others, he knows he cannot complete 
the task. There is not time. He can only prepare 
a work for others to finish. Yet even in this he 
finds comfort. Even though he must die, others 
will carry on the work and will benefit by it; 
generation after generation will be the better for 
this which he has begun. He begins to see the 



GOETHE'S FAUST 101 

vision of it — far-reaching and splendid. He 
urges his workmen on. Here is something that 
satisfies him. Blind though he is, light floods his 
spirit. Here is, indeed, "lofty bliss " — this vision 
in which he sees his work blessing for aeons his 
fellow-beings. In contemplation of it he finds at 
last a happy moment which he would detain if he 
could. But even while longing to detain it, his 
hold on life slackens, loosens, and he dies. 

The contract with Mephistopheles is now 
apparently fulfilled and Mephistopheles claims 
the soul of Faust. But heavenly messengers dis- 
pute the possession of it. For it is not the pleas- 
ures which Mephistopheles has offered him, not 
pleasure of the senses, not worldly power, not 
these which have satisfied him, rather the striv- 
ing of Faust's own soul to serve others. 

The last scene, like the prologue, is laid in 
heaven. Margaret, a saved soul, who has long 
awaited Faust's coming, begs to be allowed to 
lead Faust's spirit in these, its new and heav- 
enly surroundings. Her request is granted. The 
drama closes with Faust and Margaret reunited, 
the pure womanly soul of Margaret leading that 
of Faust on to higher bliss. 

When we study "Faust" carefully, we find 
many reasons for its greatness, and chief among 
them its human interest. The very plan of it is 



102 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

broad and human. To know first the "little 
world" and then the greater is the experience of 
every complete life. The "little world" is the 
world we each know in youth, the world of our 
own individual and personal interests; the greater 
world lies rather in those richer years when we 
attain to deeper knowledge, wider projects, and 
the service of others. There is something very 
human, too, in Faust's restless longing and dis- 
content. Do we not all strive and long for per- 
sonal happiness just as Faust did.^ 

Faust, seeking happiness selfishly, tests and 
tries life, sins, and learns, and strives. He saves 
his soul at last not by penance or prayer; rather 
it is saved by that persistent aspiration which 
will not let him rest; which prompts him to fling 
away one experience after another, until he 
comes at last to the one satisfying thing — self- 
sacrifice. 

Here, indeed, is the keynote to the whole 
drama. As the "Odyssey" is built about the 
great need for patience and endurance; as the 
"Divine Comedy" is built about man's desire 
and need for justice, so "Faust" is built around 
that other great human desire and need — 
unselfishness — the sacrifice of self in service to 
others. 



GOETHE'S FAUST 103 

MAGIC IN THE FAUST STORY 

One of the most noticeable motifs of the Faust 
story is that of magic. It is by magic that 
Mephistopheles accomplishes all his wonderful 
feats. Faust himself is represented as possessed 
of magic powers. He, like Mephistopheles, can 
set aside the law and order of the world and can 
have things as he himself wishes them. 

If one looks for a reason why this motif of 
magic should be used so persistently in this work, 
it seems clear. In a drama whose key-note is un- 
selfishness, magic stands as a fine and massive 
symbol of selfishness. For selfishness is in its 
essence the preference of self above law and 
order, and law and order represent the rights 
and benefits of others. It is no uncommon thing 
for us to pray for what we desire without refer- 
ence to the good of others; we would, if we could, 
have some miracle operate for our benefit with- 
out regard to the fixed law of God. This, too, 
is selfishness; but it is the selfishness of desire 
only. But to Faust, Goethe has given the power 
to accomplish, by means of Mephistopheles's 
magic and his own, the fulfillment of such selfish 
desires. He attains what he wants, without re- 
gard to others. He is not only selfish, as so many 
of us are selfish, in wish, but he has the power 



104 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

to accomplish his every selfish purpose. Again 
and again Goethe depicts Faust as the selfish 
man with the power to carry out his selfishness. 

In the very first scene, though he has great 
powers, they are not used greatly to benefit his 
fellows. There he does not even remember his 
humankind, but is wholly absorbed in his own 
discontent. His is a life richly endowed, which 
might be of service to others, yet he would end it 
merely because he is tired of it; and because his 
longings are unsatisfied. His love for Margaret 
is not less selfish, for, though in the forest scene 
he foresees the ruin he will bring upon her, he 
cannot deny himself for her sake. He would have 
her for himself, in his own manner, without re- 
gard to the suffering he is to bring her. Later, 
his success and power at court are won not as 
others would have to win these — by patient 
striving. Here, too, power, beauty, knowledge 
are his by magic and selfish means. All these 
things must come to him magically, imperiously, 
as he, Faust, wishes them. 

This "magic," this desire to set aside universal 
law for the sake of personal benefit, is a thing 
common enough in the experience of the race. 
We see it in our great industries, in our body 
politic; it cannot be said to be absent from our 
churches and creeds; it is that in power, legal or 



GOETHE'S FAUST 105 

illegal, which gives the few and influential and 
chosen the greatest benefit, which seems to set 
aside, temporarily at least, the great workings of 
natural and divine laws for the operation of 
human and personal ones; it is that human sel- 
fishness of mind and intellect, as well as of 
heart, which would have things to be as it wishes 
them to be, regardless of truth and the rights of 
others. 

In Goethe's wide knowledge of life he must 
have seen this again and again, and he exem- 
plified it in his hero Faust. Even almost to the 
very last selfishness crops out in Faust. Even 
in planning his scheme for the benefit of others, 
he deprives (and it is again by magic) an aged 
couple of their home because it happens to 
stand on a piece of ground which he needs for 
his great project and also which he needs for his 
own pleasure. He wants it for himself, you note. 
He offers to build a better house elsewhere, it is 
true, for these two, but they prefer the little 
old hut with its cherished memories. Their hap- 
piness lies here, but the happiness of the aged 
couple, Philemon and Baucis, and their natural 
attachment to their own home, do not weigh with 
Faust. He is petulant, impatient, because they 
will not sell the land to him. The bell from their 
ancient chapel frets, annoys him, angers him: — 



106 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

Accursed chime! ... 

The bell proclaims with envious bluster. 
My grand estate lacks full design: 
The brown old hut, the linden cluster. 
The crumbling chapel are not mine." 

At this point, Mephistopheles, returning from 
sea plunder, finds Faust sunk in gloomy envy of 
the linden trees and the brown hut that are not 
his. He wants the linden trees for himself that 
he may look out over what he has accomplished 
and may have a better view of it. 

The old ones, there, should make concession; 

A shady seat I would create : 

The lindens, not my own possession. 

Disturb my joy in mine estate. 

There would I for a view unbaffled 

From bough to bough erect a scaffold, etc., etc. 

Mephistopheles says to him, " Why be an- 
noyed when you have the power to do as you 
choose?" Why should not Faust simply exert 
that power and remove this old couple who stand 
in the way of his pleasure? Faust bids Meph- 
istopheles go and "clear them out" and set them 
in a better place he has chosen for them. 

But like most of his selfishness this, too, ends 
in disaster. The old couple, roughly treated by 
Mephistopheles and his servants, die and the 
home catches fire and burns to the ground. 



GOETHE'S FAUST 107 

Faust's selfishness 

Faust has lived selfishly; he has tested life 
and always with one thing in view — his own 
happiness. So he has continued for years, 
many years, for he is old now. Yet in this su- 
premely human and selfish Faust, there is one 
great redeeming quality: Faust is selfish but 
never does his selfishness satisfy him. Always 
it brings him discontent or wretchedness, or 
repentance or suffering. Humanly he returns to 
his selfishness again and again, but he never 
rests in it. 

At last, after many years of selfish living he 
becomes wholly interested in a great plan for 
the benefit of others; at last he despises his own 
selfishness ; at last he renounces magic and longs 
to escape from the trammels of it: 

If I could banish Magic's fell creations. 
And totally unlearn the incantations. 

Care visits him, breathes upon his eyes and 
blinds him. But in his very blindness an inner 
spiritual light begins to dawn in him : — 

The Night seems deeper now to press around me, 
But in my inmost spirit all is light. 

His whole desire now is to see his great plan 
carried out, if may be, before death overtakes 



108 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

him. The waves are to be stayed, a vast marshy 
plain is to be drained to furnish a fair, free soil 
to many men. He seems to see now by the inner 
spiritual light that neither beauty nor magic nor 
worldly power nor selfishness can ever satisfy 
him, but only that which is now his supreme 
desire — service to others. Here is the sacrifice 
of all his old imperious self, and in that sacrifice 
Faust finds his happy moment. 

The drama is all the stronger, the more human, 
because this theme of self-sacrifice is not set out 
in any morbid way. The self-sacrifice of Faust is 
on a big, not a petty scale. His unselfishness is 
attended by no personal suffering or tragedy. 
When we compare it, for instance, with the mag- 
nificent self-sacrifice of Prometheus in the old 
Greek legend, it seems a lesser thing. Yet not 
lesser, perhaps, rather only a less passionate 
thing; and if not so stirring, yet not less in its 
human interest. Faust's self-sacrifice is, one may 
say, the conclusion of all his experience, the ver- 
dict of his intellect; the result of all his testing; 
the summing-up of all his philosophy; the crown 
and hard-earned knowledge of a long life. Old, 
Faust has come to this knowledge; weary, he 
has come to this restful truth; blind, he has at- 
tained to this vision — that in service to others 
and in it alone can the soul find content. 



GOETHE'S FAUST 109 

THE THEME OF THE MARGARET STORY 

As in the "Odyssey" the story of Penelope is 
in beautiful harmony with that of Ulysses, as 
she in her woman's way practices, as he does in 
the manner of a man, endurance and patience, 
so here, the story of Margaret is in exquisite 
harmony with that of Faust. Margaret is indeed 
one of the most appealing and beautiful charac- 
ters in literature; and this largely because she is 
so human. She is humanly selfish, too. She, too, 
like Faust, would have her own desire fulfilled 
even when that desire goes counter to her duty, 
to the law, and to the rights of others. She would 
have her own way — and uses unlawful means 
to attain it. The watchful mother would, she 
knows, prevent her meeting with Faust, so she 
gives her the sleeping-potion. She wins her 
desire, not by reason, not by conforming or 
deserving, but by trick and a sleeping-potion, a 
kind of lesser magic. It is by this means that she 
surmounts the lawful obstacle to their love — 
that she and Faust may have their desire. 

But Margaret attains to unselfishness sooner 
than Faust. There is an unselfishness in her love 
not noticeable in his. However much she, like 
him, disregards the rights of others, she is at 
least unselfish toward Faust. It comes to her 



110 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

with a sense of strangeness that her intense love 
of Faust could have brought about sin toward 
others : — 

And now a living sin am I ! 

Yet all that drove my heart thereto, 

God! was so good, so dear, so true. 

Margaret has a keener sense of the rights of 
others than has Faust. She conforms to law as 
he does not. She is under its ban. When the 
final test comes, when Faust arrives with magic 
horses that wait outside, and tries to persuade 
her to escape her penalty, not even he whom 
she loves more than all in the world can break 
down her resolve. Through the pitiful darkness 
in which her mind wanders there shine some 
clearer reason and sanity of the spirit. She re- 
fuses to quit her doom. She pays the full penalty. 

Margaret learns early that sacrifice of self 
which comes to Faust only when he is old. At 
the end of the second part we find that through- 
out the long years she has loved Faust as truly 
as ever. In the heaven to which his soul is at 
last carried she awaits him. Stealing closer to 
the Mater Gloriosa she prays : — 

Incline, O Maiden, 
With Mercy laden, 
In light unfading, 
Thy gracious countenance upon my bliss! 



GOETHE'S FAUST, 111 

My loved, my lover. 
His trials over 
In yonder world, returns to me in this! 

She would have him share the heavenly bliss 
she enjoys : — 

Vouchsafe to me that I instruct him! 
Still dazzles him the Day's new glare. 

Her prayer is granted by the Mater Gloriosa: — 

Rise thou to higher spheres! Conduct him! 
His soul aware of thee shall follow there. 

As the first scene in Faust's study gives the 
impression of something dark, of a soul solitary 
and unhappy by reason of a kind of selfish dis- 
content, the impression left with us in the last 
scene is that of light, a soul made one of the com- 
pany of the blessed and attaining the joy of 
heavenly companionship. 

This drama is wonderfully conceived, magnif- 
icently carried out — a memorable massive 
work of art. But these things alone would not 
suffice to make it one of the greatest books in the 
world. Underlying these must be some great 
human and spiritual truth, some human ideal, 
to give it its human appeal. Unselfishness, how- 
ever we may individually fail of it, is one of the 
ideals of the human race; to merge the interests 



112 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

of self into the general good is one of the great 
lasting human ideals and desires. And it is 
around this ideal and this desire that Goethe's 
"Faust" is written, through this mainly that it 
touches us; largely by means of this that it holds 
our interest so lastingly. 

All of us who have struggled as did Ulysses, 
enduringly and with patience against heavy 
odds, will find ourselves friends to Ulysses; for 
us the "Odyssey" was written. All of us who 
have longed or striven for justice, who have 
watched the beautiful and awful workings of 
God's unfailing laws, will find ourselves com- 
panions to Dante. And, not less, all of us who 
have with human selfishness enjoyed many bene- 
fits and experiences of life, only to find at last 
that joy lies not in living for one's self but in ser- 
vice to others, will find ourselves bound with 
strong bonds to the hero of Goethe's great drama, 
will find ourselves, as it were, understanding 
brothers to Faust. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 

I therefore arose, and, having closed the shop, proceeded with her 
in security until we arrived at the house ; and I found it to he a man- 
sion displaying evident signs of prosperity : its door was adorned 
with gold and silver and ultramarine, and upon it were inscrihed 
these two verses : — 

O mansion, may mourning never enter thee, nor fortune act treach- 
erously to thine owner ! 

An excellent mansion to every guest art thou when other places are 
strait unto him. 

" The Story of Mohammed Ali," The Arabian Nights. 

Spirit I the Fairy said, 
And pointed to the gorgeous dome. 

This is a wondrous sight 
And mocks all human grandeur ; 

Spirit, come ! 

This is thine high reward : — the past shall rise ; 
Thou shalt behold the present ; I will teach 
The secrets of the future. 

Shelley. 

It is generally believed that the stories com- 
prising the "Arabian Nights" were collected 
under that title in Arabia about the twelfth cen- 
tury. Yet we know that many of the tales date 
further back than that. The origin of some of 
them may be traced to China, India, Persia, 
Greece of a far earlier date. But whatever the 
origin of the tales, the flavor of them as we find 
them collected in the "Arabian Nights" is dis- 



114 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

tinctly Arabian. The characters are Moham- 
medans, most of them, and the cities described 
are generally those of Arabia and Egypt. The 
times in which the stories are placed are times 
of much luxury and splendor, and of vivid and 
colored superstitions. The tales are of a coun- 
try semi -barbarous, and there is a consistent and 
splendid exaggeration running through them. 
In them we find kings of such wealth and power 
that they may carry out any conceivable royal 
whim. The chief king told of is one who takes 
a new wife each day and has wives and subjects 
put to death at will. Every circumstance and 
happening is as far as possible from the circum- 
stance and happening of our own lives. We 
have never known people who had the power 
or habits of these people, nor are we likely to, 
yet we read of them with enchantment. The 
book has a world-wide fame, has been translated 
into almost every tongue, and is readily admitted 
to be one of the great books of the world. 

THE STORY OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 

The main story of the "Arabian Nights" 
starts out in the old fairy-tale "once-upon-a- 
time" manner. "There was in ancient times a 
king." There follows then the story of the king's 
two sons, and especially of the eldest, Shahriar. 



THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 115 

From observation, as well as from a bitter expe- 
rience of his own, Shahriar came to believe that 
all women were tricky and unfaithful. Having 
put his wife to death for her unfaithfulness, he 
determined to take no chances with future ones. 
Each day he chose a new wife and each morning 
after her wedding-night she, too, was beheaded. 
So he did and continued to do, until the people 
raised an outcry and fled with their daughters 
so that none of marriageable age were left save 
only the two daughters of the king's vizier, or 
prime minister. 

So when the king sent for his vizier and de- 
manded that another wife be brought him, the 
vizier was overcome with woe, dreading that 
Sheherazade and Dinarzade, his two daughters, 
be sacrificed to the king's wishes. But Shehera- 
zade, the elder, fearlessly begged to be given to 
the king in marriage, and would not be gainsaid. 
Now Sheherazade was not only of rare beauty, 
but of rare intellect as well; for to her were 
known many books of histories and lives of 
kings and stories of past generations and the 
works of the poets. She had collected, too, it 
is said, many books. 

Sheherazade's request was granted. She was 
dressed to go to the king, but before departing 
she gave this message to her younger sister: 



116 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

"When I have gone to the king's chamber I shall 
send and request you to come to me. This you 
shall do; then when you have the chance, you 
shall ask me to relate some strange story to be- 
guile the time." 

Everything happened as she had directed. 
Weeping, Sheherazade begged the king to al- 
low her to bid good-bye to Dinarzade. Dinar- 
zade was sent for and remained for a time, and 
presently, as had been agreed upon, begged 
Sheherazade to relate some tale to beguile the 
time. Sheherazade asked if she might do so; 
and the king, being restless, and pleased, too, 
with the idea of listening to a story, bade her 
begin. 

The story that Sheherazade told was of such 
interest and wonder that the king listened will- 
ingly enough. The last of the tale, however, led 
skilfully into still another quite as wonderful or 
even more so. And the king's interest was 
piqued, and he asked her what that tale might 
be, so she related that also. And each tale led 
always so cunningly into another that always the 
king wished to hear the next story and bade 
Sheherazade relate it. So there was, indeed, 
never an end to the stories. Day followed day: 
and for a thousand and one nights Sheherazade 
related the wonderful tales. 



THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 117 

Now Sheherazade, in the time that had passed, 
had borne the king three children. 

And when she had ended these tales, she rose upon her 
feet and kissed the ground before the king, and said to 
him: 

"O king of the time, and incomparable one of the age 
and period, verily I am thy slave, and during a thousand 
and one nights I have related to thee the history of the 
preceding generations, and the admonitions of the people 
of former times; then have I any claim upon thy majesty, 
so that I may request of thee to grant me a wish?'* 

And the King answered her, 

** Request; thou shalt receive, O Sheherazade.'* 

So thereupon she called out to the nurses and the 
eunuchs, and said to them : — 

"Bring ye my children." 

Accordingly, they brought them to her quickly — and 
they were three male children: one of them walked, and 
one crawled, and one was at the breast. And when they 
brought them she took them and placed them before the 
King, and, having kissed the ground said : — 

"O King of the age, these are thy children, and I request 
of thee that thou exempt me from slaughter, as a favor to 
these infants; for if thou slay me, these infants will become 
without a mother, and will not find among women one who 
will rear them well." 

And thereupon the King wept, and pressed his children 
to his bosom, and said: — 

"0 Sheherazade, by Allah, I pardoned thee before the 
coming of these children, because I saw thee to be chaste, 
pure, ingenious, pious. May God bless thee, and thy 
father and thy mother, and thy root and thy branch! I call 



118 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

God to witness against me that I have exempted thee from 
everything that might injure thee.*' 

So Sheherazade rose up, glad that her device 
of the marvelous tales had spared not only her 
own life, but also the lives of those who, but for 
her ingenuity, would have suffered with her the 
doom of the king's displeasure. 

She kissed his hands and his feet, and rejoiced 
with exceeding joy; and she said to him: "May 
God prolong thy life and increase thy dignity 
and majesty." 

Then joy spread through the palace of the King, until 
it became diffused throughout the city, and it was a night 
not to be reckoned among Hves. . . . The King rose in the 
morning happy. . . . He conferred robes of honor upon 
all the viziers and emirs and lords of the empire, and gave 
orders to decorate the city thirty days. ... So they 
decorated the city in a magnificent manner, the like of 
which had not been seen before, and the drums were beaten 
and the pipes were sounded, and all the performers of 
sports exhibited their arts and the King rewarded them 
munificently. . . . He bestowed alms, also, upon the poor 
and needy, and extended his generosity to all his subjects 
and all the people of his dominions. 

REAL AND UNREAL IN THE STORIES 

This is the main story from which all the 
other tales depend. It is on this thread, as it 
were, that are strung all those gems of stories 
so long famous — the individual tales of the 



THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 119 

"Thousand and One Nights' Entertainment." 
Not all these are equally great. Some shine with 
a lesser luster; some are flecked with flaws; but 
at intervals one finds almost perfect gems of 
stories, such as "Gulnare of the Sea," "Aladdin 
and the Wonderful Lamp," "The City of Brass," 
"Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," "Rose in 
Bloom," and many more. These, like barbaric 
gems, show an almost barbaric beauty and reflect, 
as from a hundred facets, the light and beauty 
and glint of days rich in magnificence, old and 
full of ancient splendor. 

When we come to study the stories, we find in 
them a curious mixture of the real and unreal. 
We find jinns and genii, fairies and magic of all 
kinds mingled with the most commonplace hap- 
penings of daily life in Cairo or Bagdad. If by 
reason of the magic happenings in them these 
may sometimes be classed almost as fairy-tales, 
yet they are fairy-tales woven ingeniously with 
the lives of real men and women. The women in 
the stories are especially real and true to life. 
It is to be noted, too, that they are, for the 
most part, clever, womanly, ingenious. She- 
herazade herself is the supreme type. She not 
only has all these thousand and one stories 
at her command, but is represented as relating 
them in such a fashion as to hold the attention 



120 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

and interest and waken the love of a man who 
had lost faith in his world. 

The story of Sheherazade is, in short, the 
story of a woman who saves herself and others 
from a dire fate by her cleverness and ingenuity. 
Not only is ingenuity the keynote of her own 
story, but again and again we see it to be the key- 
note of the stories she tells. Often the plot is 
ingenious; more often the characters are ingen- 
ious. Marjaneh, the devoted slave girl of Ali 
Baba, whose ingenuity saves him from the forty 
thieves, is a kind of younger Sheherazade. She, 
too, has the gift of wit and invention and im- 
agination and ingenuity. 

In King Shahriar's praise of Sheherazade (and 
I ask you to note this very especially) he calls 
her chaste, pure, pious, and ingenious. Ingenuity 
is held up as a virtue, along with the rest. 

When we come to examine ingenuity, as it is 
set out in the "Arabian Nights," we find it to be 
a faculty for cleverness and invention, the using 
of common means to uncommon ends. 

THE STORIES FINELY IMAGINED 

The stories themselves are inventive, ingenious, 
finely imagined; marvels are made out of the 
mere commonplaces of life; splendors invented 
out of nothing; in the story of Aladdin, an old 



THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 121 

lamp which the mother of Aladdin scrubs with a 
mere handful of sand to get it clean of dirt and 
tarnish — a homely, everyday kind of task — • 
proves itself by the process to be what but a 
magic affair. A genie, the "slave of the Lamp," 
appears out of that homely rubbing, — a genie 
able to give to the owner of the lamp the fulfill- 
ment of any wish whatsoever. 

But note that here are real people. She is an 
exceedingly real person, this mother of Aladdin, 
extraordinarily human, one of the real charac- 
ters of literature; only in the "Arabian Nights" 
do such things happen to such people in such 
wonderful and unheard-of fashion. A splendor, 
never quite seen even in that splendid age and 
country, lights up the pages of the book. One 
finds often that the descriptions of marvelous 
wealth or beauty or festivity or joy are followed 
by the phrase "the like of which hath not been 
seen." In the rejoicing of King Shahriar and 
Sheherazade we read, "and it was a night not to 
be reckoned among lives." In the story of the 
"City of Brass," one of the most gloomy and 
glorious and splendid stories in the wide world, 
we have pictures and records of fabulous wealth; 
"treasures such as the kings of the earth were 
unable to procure." 

These stories were told not only to King 



122 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

Shahriar; in the ages since, they have been told 
by Eastern story-tellers and others to thousands 
upon thousands of real people and they tell of 
real people and real happenings. It is wonderful 
how they bring before us again and again the 
very streets of Cairo, the bazaars of Bagdad, the 
fruits of Samarcand. It is all intenselj^ real, yet 
at the same time keyed above real life; some- 
thing over and above reality, — "the like of 
which hath not been seen." 

In the story of Aladdin Abushamat, there is a 
picture of exquisite reality in the description of 
Aladdin and his wife Zobeide the lute-player. 
After they have partaken of the supper Zobeide 
has prepared, Aladdin begs her to play for 
him, and she plays — "the sounds of the chords 
vying with the voice of David." Then, while 
they are full of "delight and jesting and mirth 
and gladness," there comes the knock at the 
door. 

She therefore said to him: "Arise, and see who is at 
the door." 

Accordingly, he went down, and, opening the door, 
found four dervishes standing there, and he said to them: 
"What do you desire?" 

"Oh, my master," answered one of them . . . "the 
food of our souls consisteth in music and in the delicacies 
of poetry, and we desire to recreate ourselves with thee this 
night ... for we are passionately fond of music, and 



THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 123 

there is not one among us who doth not retain in his 
memory odes and other pieces of poetry and lyric songs." 

Aladdin replied: "I must consult." 

And he went up and informed the damsel and she said 
to him : — 

"Open the door to them." 

So he opened to them the door. 

The dervishes are conducted by Aladdin to the 
upper chamber and food is offered them. We can 
see Zobeide's music-loving hands busy at the hos- 
pitable task. But the dervishes decline to eat, 
their hunger being only, they declare, for music. 

"We just now heard some pleasant music in thine abode; 
but when we came up it ceased; and we would that we 
knew whether she who was performing is a white or black 
slave girl, or a lady." 

Aladdin replied: "She is my wife." 

The whole thing is so simple, so real, one would 
suspect it to be nothing more than a story of real 
life. Aladdin and Zobeide are like friends we 
have known well. We find them there in the 
story happy, at home, devoted to each other, and 
entertaining themselves with music against the 
coming of the stars. Then the knock of those 
who have heard the music and wish to enjoy it 
too. Well, this is even in the "Arabian Nights" 
a somewhat unusual thing to happen and not 
to be taken too lightly, so Aladdin must consult 



IM THE GREATEST BOOKS 

Zobeide. The whole scene has the air of friendly 
reality. The dervishes are asked in. Aladdin, 
as the conversation becomes more intimate, 
confides to them, at last, a family dilemma in 
which he finds himself, which is this : He is to pay 
his father-in-law ten thousand pieces of gold as 
Zobeide's wedding dower — and has not where- 
with to pay it. So the scene develops, still a real 
scene among real people. Only, one of the der- 
vishes, the chief dervish, is no dervish at all, it 
appears; but is, indeed, as it turns out, the great 
Caliph Haroun el Raschid, who, wearying of his 
state, has put on this dervish disguise that he 
may mingle unknown with the common people 
and entertain himself with their interests and 
opinions. He promises Aladdin that the gold 
shall be paid and bids him not grieve. 

But from here the wonders begin, and from 
here on increase, multiplying like domes and 
minarets in a dream. The "fairy" quality comes 
in. Even the death of Zobeide, later in the 
story, is annulled by a friendly princess with 
fairy powers, and these people whom we found in 
the first of the story entertaining themselves in 
so natural and almost homely a fashion in the 
evening after the day's duties, we now behold 
seated on a magic sofa which carries them 
through the air wheresoever they wish. 



THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 125 

This is all very typical, very characteristic 
of these tales. Simplicity and reality — then 
flying couches, magic lamps, magic horses, jewels 
as large as eggs and plentiful as fruit, magic 
dinners brought from nowhere on gold and silver 
plate; suddenly the real has bloomed into the 
unreal, the commonplace into the extraordi- 
nary. 

An almost better example is to be found in 
the story of "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp." 

Aladdin is the son of a poor tailor and has 
been a "scatter-brained scapegrace from his 
birth." In his tenth year he is apprenticed to his 
father to learn the trade of tailoring. But no- 
thing can avail to break him of his idle habits. 
At his father's death the boy's widowed mother 
sells the shop and subsists by spinning. So things 
go on until Aladdin is fifteen. The description 
of the boy is complete. He is a real boy, idle, 
yet not altogether unlovable, playing with the 
ragamuffins in the street, coming home only to 
meals, careless, thoughtless, selfish. In the few 
paragraphs given over to the beginning of the 
tale the character of the boy and his mother 
are drawn "to the life." Throughout the entire 
story is preserved the entirely human quality, 
and the reality of the characters loses nothing by 
the later miraculous happenings, Aladdin him- 



126 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

self is like another we have met. The mother 
of Aladdin, like Marjaneh the slave girl, is one 
of the real people in books. 

But it is not long before there appears on the 
commonplace scene the sorcerer from Barbary, 
who pretends to be the uncle of the boy Aladdin 
so as to win him to his own uses and purposes, 
and to make a cat's-paw of him for the securing 
of certain vast treasure. 

There follow then these fantastic, wonderful 
passages concerning the subterranean gardens in 
which Aladdin finds himself : — 

He went down into the garden, where he began to marvel 
at the trees with the birds on their branches singing the 
praises of their glorious Creator. And though he had not 
noticed it when he entered, these trees were all covered 
with precious stones instead of fruit, and each tree was of 
a different kind and had different jewels, of all colours, 
and the brilliance of these jewels paled the sun's rays at 
noontide. [Note this also :] And the size of each stone sur- 
passed description, so that none of the kings of the world 
possessed any like the largest or half the size of the least 
of them. And Aladdin walked among the trees and gazed 
upon them and on these things which dazzled the sight 
and bewildered the mind, and as he examined them he 
perceived that instead of ordinary fruit the yield was of 
big jewels, emeralds and diamonds, and rubies and pearls, 
and other precious stones, such as to bewilder the under- 
standing. But as he had never seen such things in his life, 
and had not reached mature years so as to know the value 



THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 127 

of such Jewels (for he was still a little boy), he imagined 
that these jewels were all of glass or crystal. And he 
gathered pockets full of them, and began to examine 
whether they were ordinary fruit, like figs and grapes and 
other like eatables; but when he saw that they were of glass 
(knowing nothing of precious stones), he put some of each 
kind that grew on the trees into his pockets and finding 
them of no use for food, he said in his mind: "I will gather 
these glass fruits and play with them at home." So he 
began plucking them and stuffing them into his pockets 
until they were full. 

After this come the accounts of all those still 
more wonderful and astounding experiences 
which have so long delighted so many: Innum- 
erable riches; magic slaves who appear at the 
rubbing of a ring or lamp and fulfill for Aladdin 
every wish of his heart; vast palaces upreared 
as easily, transported, removed, recovered, by 
means as facile as extraordinary. 

But all this, you say, is a kind of meaningless 
extravaganza. No; hardly. A mere meaningless 
extravaganza could not have held the attention 
of generations of men and women. We must look 
still deeper. 

When we seek for some clear ethical or moral 
purpose in the tales, we find very little of it. The 
stories of the "Arabian Nights" are not, either 
in their general plot or in their happening, 



128 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

moral in any strict sense; they do not point out 
any grave moral duty or spiritual obligation. 
Too often, indeed, the craft and means of suc- 
cess practiced in them are condemnable accord- 
ing to our code. There is, it is true, a kind of 
moral philosophy evident throughout them and 
a continual reiteration of the necessity of submit- 
ting to the will of God. 

In the story of the "City of Brass," the fa- 
mous inscription, the magnificent admonition, 
on the sepulchre of the dead king is impressive, 
setting out as it does the powerlessness of riches 
as against the power of God. He bids his readers 
as earnestly as ever Solomon did to look upon 
the world as vanity. 

Confide not in it, nor incline to it; for it will betray him 
who dependeth upon it, and who in his affairs relieth upon 
it. Fall not in its snares, nor cling to its skirts. 

Then he proceeds to prove his words with a 
recital of his own experience: — 

For I possessed four thousand bay horses in a stable; 
and I married a thousand damsels of the daughters of 
kings, high-bosomed virgins, like moons; and I was blessed 
with a thousand children, like stern lions; and I lived a 
thousand years, happy in mind and heart; and I amassed 
riches such as the kings of the regions of the earth were 
unable to procure, and imagined that my enjoyments would 
continue without failure. But I was not aware when there 



THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 129 

alighted among us the terminator of delights and the 
separator of companions, the desolator of abodes, and the 
ravager of inhabited mansions, the destroyer of the great 
and the small, and the infants, and the children, and the 
mothers. We had resided in this palace in security until 
the event decreed by the Lord of all creatures, the Lord of 
the heavens and the Lord of the earth, befell us, and the 
thunder of the manifest truth assailed us, and there died of 
us every day two, till a great company of us had perished. 
So when I saw that destruction had entered our dwellings 
and had alighted among us, and drowned us in the sea of 
deaths, I summoned a writer, and ordered him to write 
these verses, and admonitions, and lessons, and caused 
them to be engraved upon these doors, and tablets, and 
tombs. I had an army comprising a thousand bridles, 
composed of hardy men, with spears, and coats of mail, 
and sharp swords, and strong arms; and I ordered them to 
clothe themselves with the long coats of mail, and to hang 
on the keen swords, and to place in the rest the terrible 
lances, and mount the high-blooded horses. Then, when 
the event appointed by the Lord of all creatures, the Lord 
of all the earth and the heavens, befell us, I said, "O com- 
panies of troops and soldiers, can ye prevent that which 
hath befallen me from the Mighty King?" But the soldiers 
and troops were unable to do so, and they said, "How shall 
we contend against him from whom none hath secluded, 
the Lord of the door that hath no door-keeper?" — So 
I said, "Bring me the wealth." (And it was contained in a 
thousand pits, in each of which were a thousand hundred- 
weights of red gold, and in them were varieties of pearls 
and jewels, and there was the like quantity of white silver, 
with treasures such as the kings of the earth were unable 
to procure.) And they did so; and when they had brought 



130 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

the wealth before me, I said to them, "Can ye deliver me 
by means of all these riches, and purchase for me therewith 
one day during which I may remain alive? " But they could 
not do so. They resigned themselves to fate and destiny, 
and I submitted to God with patient endurance of fate and 
affliction until he took my soul, and made me to dwell in 
my grave. And if thou ask concerning my name, I am 
Kosh the son of Sheddad the son of Ad the Greater. 

Even more impressive because touched with a 
greater pity are the inscriptions in the palace of 
Tadmore, the dead queen in the same story. 
Death has rarely been drawn so impressively 
and in the midst of such splendor. Here is a tale 
not unlike that of the Sleeping Beauty, but, un- 
like the sleep of a hundred years that was brought 
on in that story by the prick of a bodkin and 
the spite of a neglected fairy, the sleep that has 
fallen over the palace in this more somber tale is 
the one that to all eternity shall know no waking. 
It would be hard to match anywhere in litera- 
ture the combined splendor and gloom of the 
whole recital. The explorers of the City of Brass 
have come to the palace and find inscribed these 
verses : — 

Consider a people who decorated their abodes, and in the 
dust have become pledged for their actions. 

They built, but their buildings availed not; and treasured, 
but their wealth did not save them when the term 
had expired. 



THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 131 

How often they hoped for what was not decreed them! 
But they passed to the graves, and hope did not 
profit them; 

Where are the thrones, and the crowns, and the apparel? 

Where are the faces which were veiled and curtained, and 
on which, for their beauty, proverbs were com- 
posed? 

And the grave plainly answered the inquirer for them. As 
to the cheeks, the rose is gone from them, etc. 

And this : — 

They led troops in multitudes, and collected riches; and 

they left their wealth and buildings, and departed 
To the narrow graves, and laid down in the dust; and there 

they have remained, pledged for their actions; 
As if the company of travellers had put down their baggage 

during the night in a house where was no food for 

guests. 
And its owner had said to them, **0 people, there is not 

any lodging for you in it." So they packed after 

alighting. 
And they all thereupon became fearful and timid; 

The visitors come at last through splendid 
halls and passages to the great room where the 
queen herself lies buried. 

They then passed on, and found a saloon constructed 
of polished marble adorned with jewels. The beholder 
imagined that upon its floor was running water, and if any 
one walked upon it he would slip. The Emir Mousa there- 
fore ordered the Sheikh Abdelsamad to throw upon it 
something, that they might be enabled to walk on it; and 



132 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

he did this, and contrived so that they passed on. And 
they found in it a great dome constructed of stones gilded 
with red gold. The party had not beheld, in all that they 
had seen, anything more beautiful than it. And in the 
midst of that dome was a great dome-crowned structure 
of alabaster, around which were lattice windows, decorated, 
and adorned with oblong emeralds, such as none of the 
kings could procure. In it was a pavilion of brocade, raised 
upon columns of red gold, and within this were birds, the 
feet of which were of emeralds; beneath each bird was a 
net of brilliant pearls, spread over a fountain; and by the 
brink of the fountain was placed a couch adorned with 
pearls, and jewels, and jacinths, whereon was a damsel 
resembling the shining sun. Eyes had not beheld one more 
beautiful. . . . When the Emir Mousa beheld this damsel, 
he wondered extremely at her loveliness, and was con- 
founded by her beauty, and the redness of her cheeks, and 
the blackness of her hair. Any beholder would imagine 
that she was alive, and not deadl And they said to her, 
*' Peace be to thee, O damsel!" But Taleb the son of Sahl 
said to the emir, "May God amend thy state! Know that 
this damsel is dead. There is no life in her. How, then, can 
she return the salutation? "... Upon this the Emir Mousa 
said, "Extolled be the perfection of God, who has subdued 
his servants by death!" And as to the couch upon which 
was the damsel, it had steps, and upon the steps were two 
slaves, one of them white and the other black; and in the 
hand of one of them was a weapon of steel, and in the hand 
of vthe other a jeweled sword that blinded the eyes; and 
before the two slaves was a tablet of gold, whereon was 
read an inscription, which was this: 

"In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, 
Praise be to God, the Creator of man; and He is the Lord 



THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 133 

of lords, and the Cause of causes.. . . . Knowest thou not 
that death hath called for thee, and hath advanced to seize 
thy soul? Be ready, then, for departure, and make pro- 
vision in the world; for thou wilt quit it soon. Where is 
Adam, the father of mankind? Where are Noah and his 
offspring? Where are the sovereign kings and Caesars? 
Where are the kings of India and Irak? Where are the 
kings of the regions of the earth? Where are the Amalek- 
ites? Where are the mighty monarchs? The mansions 
are void of their presence, and they have quitted their 
families and homes. Where are the kings of the foreigners 
and the Arabs? . . . O thou, if thou know me not, I will 
acquaint thee with my name and my descent. I am 
Tadmor, the daughter of the King of the Amalekites, of 
those who ruled the countries with equity. I possessed 
what none of the kings possessed, and ruled with justice, 
and acted impartially toward my subjects: I gave and 
bestowed, and I lived a long time in the enjoyment of 
happiness and an easy life, and emancipated female and 
male slaves. Thus I did until the summoner of death came 
to my abode, and disasters occurred before me. And the 
case was this: Seven years in succession came upon us, 
during which no water descended on us from heaven, nor 
did any grass grow for us on the face of the earth. So we 
ate what food we had in our dwellings, and after that we 
fell upon the beasts and ate them, and there remained 
nothing. Upon this, therefore, I caused the wealth to be 
brought, and meted it with a measure, and sent it by trusty 
men, who went about with it through all the districts, not 
leaving un visited a single large city, to seek for some food. 
But they found it not; and they returned to us with the 
wealth, after a long absence. So thereupon we exposed to 
view our riches and our treasures, locked the gates of the 



134 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

fortresses in our city, and submitted ourselves to the decree 
of our Lord, committing our case to our Master; and thus 
we all died, as thou beholdest, and left what we had built 
and what we had treasured. This is the story: and after 
the substance there remaineth not aught save the vestige." 

Fatalism is evident throughout the stories. 
God is extolled as the All-Merciful but equally 
as the All -Powerful, against whose ruling no 
man may contend. The gloomy fatalism not less 
than the rich imagery and materialism of the 
more colored Eastern religion is inwoven in the 
whole fabric. 

The more we study the stories, the more we 
find "other times, other manners." Indeed, the 
customs and manners among which these tales 
are laid are so entirely foreign to our own that 
without earnest study we can have little or no 
grasp or understanding of them. Why is it, then, 
that in country after country, among people of 
all classes, rich and poor, lettered and unlettered, 
this is reckoned one of the really great books, and 
is read and reread untiringly? 

THE INVENTION OF SHEHERAZADE 

In looking for some of the reasons underlying 
its greatness, I would recall to you again that the 
king spoke of Sheherazade as chaste, pious, and 
ingenious; inventive, that is, cleverly inventive. 



THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 135 

Her own dealing with the king is a consummate 
piece of cleverness. The plot for trapping his 
interest and averting his displeasure is thor- 
oughly ingenious, inventive. It is not by argu- 
ment, not by pleading, but by ingenuity that 
she takes facts ugly enough in themselves and 
turns and handles and remoulds them to another 
and even lovely fashion. What was to be a sor- 
did and ugly thing is turned by her ingenuity, 
and her imaginative woman's mind, by her witty 
invention, into a thing actually delightful. The 
morrow of her wedding night was to have been 
a day of slaughter; instead, at the end of one 
thousand and one nights of extended pleasure 
and entertainment, we find herself and the king 
established in a lasting happiness. Her plan is a 
suflSciently daring one. There is a kind of gentle 
pathos, as well, in the circumstance. A woman, 
frail in herself and powerless in the eyes of the 
world, doomed to a dire fate, forgets that doom 
and causes the king to forget it by means of 
mere invention and imagination. Picture after 
picture she brings before the mind's eye of the 
king. Tale after tale is told, time passes, and the 
doom is forgotten. 

It is, after all, this main story of Sheherazade 
herself which has a meaning and beauty in it 
which seems to outshine the rest. Many com- 



136 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

mentators give it scant attention, and look on it 
as a mere "framework" for the other tales and 
a kind of excuse for the telling of them. Boccac- 
cio uses the plague which afflicted the fair city 
of Florence in 1348 as the "framework" for 
the stories in his "Decameron." A company of 
men and women go into the country to escape 
the plague and there dwell, making merry and 
telling the tales that go to make up the book. 
In the same way Chaucer uses the journey 
of a company of pilgrims to the shrine of 
a Becket at Canterbury for the tales told in the 
"Canterbury Pilgrims." And many look upon 
the story of Sheherazade as not more — a 
mere framework in which the other stories are 
inclosed. 

But it is much more than that. It is, after all, 
Sheherazade's voice which is heard throughout 
all the stories. It is her personality and hers 
only which we remember in connection with the 
telling of them. It is she who tells us the tales; 
and her memory and imagination and invention 
color them. The whole plan of the telling them 
is hers. 

It is, then, in the character of Sheherazade 
that we are most likely to find the clue or reason 
we are looking for. She is a person lovely, chaste, 
ingenious, inventive, imaginative. It is in these 



THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 137 

qualities and most of all in that of imagination 
that we shall find the motif of the stories. 

Now imagination is the power of imagery, of 
producing by one means or another a mental 
picture of something not as it exists, but as we 
would have it exist. It is that faculty which most 
distinguishes man from the brute creation. For 
man can imagine himself some one else, — can 
imagine events other than they are, and can by 
words and other means project his images on the 
understanding of others. He can by this faculty 
picture things and events not only as they are, 
but as they have been; can summon up the 
past, or he can picture the future as it might be, 
or as he for the moment desires it to be, and can 
in this fashion show it to his fellow-creatures. 

No magic in the "Arabian Nights " seems quite 
so magical and wonderful as this. Man can in 
this way create a world for himself which, while 
it is founded on the happenings and events of the 
established world, yet differs from it. It is crea- 
tion on a small scale. 

In this man's world of images or imagination, 
the great natural laws and events of the real 
world are set aside at will and without ado. Seas 
unsailable, mountains impassable, are passed 
over, sailed over in any fashion man may choose: 
a flying carpet; a sofa endowed with powers to 



138 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

glide through the air; palaces which in the real 
world would take years and incalculable labour 
to construct are upraised, as by Aladdin, by the 
mere rubbing of an old lamp. Difficulties insur- 
mountable in real life are overcome with what 
ease. Here, man, with what splendid daring, 
takes up life in his hands like a crystal ball, turns 
it to catch whatever light he likes, gazes into it, 
and sees life not as it really is, too vast for his 
understanding, forever beyond his hold, but 
rather as if within his grasp, subject to his con- 
trol — the very heavens and earth reflected and 
held in the palms and hollow of his two hands. 

THE ROOT OF ALL ROMANCE 

It is a thing of some dignity, this gift, this 
power of imaging and imagining. It is the very 
root of all romance. It is the thing which, when 
reality presses too hard upon him, makes life 
livable to man yet awhile. He imagines things 
other than they are; pictures them in happier 
fashion; makes good out of evil, and builds hap- 
piness on the ruins of unhappiness. 

The thing goes far into human nature. Feel- 
ing about for the underlying meaning of these 
great books, we begin to touch once more in 
this one some of the deep humanities. Seeking 
below the surface for their clearer meaning 



THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 139 

we come upon those inexhaustible springs of 
human action which feed all the rivers of our 
lives. 

We have said that great books are always 
written around experiences common to all men, 
common to humanity at large, not to any one 
class. The "Arabian Nights" is written around 
that faculty for imagining which is common to us 
all and which is as old as the race. The escape 
from the real to the contemplation of the desir- 
able has rested many a soul before it satisfied 
yours and mine. It is the native habit of chil- 
dren; and it has been the comfort of young and 
old since ever young men have dreamed dreams 
and old men have seen visions. Here in this 
almost divine faculty is the very abode of that 
True Romance of which Kipling sings with so 
much understanding and devotion : — 

Thy face is far from this our war — 



Enough for me in dreams to see 

And touch thy garment's hem; 
Thy feet have trod so near to God 

I may not follow them. 

On and on in those wonderful verses of his, 
which should be known by all who love life and 
the romance and beauty of it, he apostrophizes 
the True Romance. The better he knows her the 



140 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

more he loves her. All that is fair in life bej^ond 
man's material needs, each stroke of toil and 
fight, each hope for which men have died, has 
come from her. It is she who has taught "all 
lovers speech," who has endowed life with all 
its mystery, who has existed before the world 
was, who has given us a name for our beliefs. 
Hers is the power to lead us on to high ends 
and to \actory; as hers it is to comfort those 
who fail. 

Thou art the voice to kingly boys 

To Uft them through the fight. 
And Comfortless of Unsuccess 

To give the dead good-night. 

Oh Charity, all patiently 

Abiding wrack and scaith! 
Oh Faith, that meets ten thousand cheats 

Yet drops no jot of faith! 

And so on, straight through the splendid poem. 
The last verse quoted gives a hint of the broader 
meaning and power of romance. For when we 
trace imagination and romance deeper than our 
first impressions of them, we find them rooted 
in what else but man's faith and, deeper still, 
man's hope; that lasting and undying quality 
which he has carried with him since the first and 
will carry with him to the last. 



THE ABABIAN NIGHTS 141 

THE STORY OF MAN's HOPE 

Man has taken the facts of Hf e as Sheherazade 
took them, and from them by means of imagina- 
tion and hope has made beauty and lovehness. 
Things dire in themselves he has turned to lovely 
uses. 

The story of man's hope, through the ages, is 
more fascinating than any tale told by Sheheraz- 
ade, is more splendid in its daring and more mar- 
velous in its craft and invention. Man, placed in 
a world where all things threatened him; where 
fire burned and frost bit him; surrounded by 
seas that forbade him; blown on by winds that 
buffeted him, menaced by death that in dark 
places surprised and challenged him, or in the 
noonday overtook him; his home and altars 
thrown down again and again by vast forces that 
mocked his puny strength; domineered by 
powers beside which the jinns and genii of the 
"Arabian Nights" seem but feeble spirits; what 
would one suppose the outcome could be but 
ignominious defeat! 

Yet, like an Arab tale, built by the ingenious 
fancy of Sheherazade, the end is not defeat, but 
victory. For always there was man's faculty for 
hope, an undying, imaginative, unconquerable 
thing. Always there was his power of imagining 



142 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

the world not as it was all about him, but as it 
might he; as he wished it might be, and, little by 
little, through the ages hoped it might be. So, 
imagining better things, he worked with feeble 
fingers at the weaving of his vast future; and as 
his daily strength failed and he must himself go 
to his rest, called to another in the fading light, 
and bade him not neglect the task. 

So, hoping better things, man returned always 
to his sorrows refreshed and strengthened for 
new endeavor. Little by little and by a thousand 
and one ingenuities and inventions, pictured first 
in the mind's eye, imaged first in some chamber 
of the brain, man fulfilled his daring hope and 
attained his masterful destiny; contended with 
mighty powers; built cities in the ruined plain; 
reared new temples that towered in the very 
path of the earthquake; and beyond these, estab- 
lished a dream-world of the spirit, not less, with 
its more enduring city of more precious worth, 
with gates of pearl and walls of jasper, a city vast 
and beautiful, of "twelve thousand furlongs" 
and the river of life sweeping through the midst 
of it; a place where should dwell all those "who 
have come up out of great tribulation"; where 
there were trees that bore "twelve manner of 
fruits"; where there should be no night, "no 
more death, neither sorrow nor crying." "Eye 



THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 143 

hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered 
into the heart of man the things," etc. It rings 
famihar. You see how in line it all is; whether it 
be St. Paul, in the prime of his strength talking 
to the Corinthians, or St. John, old, telling of the 
divine revelation on Patmos, or Sheherazade, 
young and pitiful in her doom, picturing with a 
less solemn but not a less human longing, "such 
riches as the kings of the earth have not seen." 

In the "Arabian Nights," not alone in the 
individual story of Sheherazade, but again and 
again in those fascinating and ingenious tales she 
tells, we see man meeting the needs of life, with 
all their difficulty and happening and perplexity, 
not by patience and endurance, as we see it in 
the "Odyssey"; not by law and ordered justice, 
as in the "Divine Comedy"; nor by service to 
others, as in "Faust, " but rather by that faculty 
for ingenuity and invention which is at bottom 
little else than hope itself. Sheherazade's inven- 
tion of the Arabian tales is really her desire for 
life, her hope turned to that form, her hope of 
escaping her doom. For hope is, indeed, always 
a kind of higher ingenuity, fitting the broken 
and scattered pieces of life into a colored and 
beautiful pattern. 

Here in the "Arabian Nights" is a great work 
of art, but art woven, as all great art must be. 



144 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

from the very materials and essentials of life; 
essentially true, however fantastic in its phrases 
and happenings, and therefore essentially moral, 
essentially spiritual. 

If man's longing and need for patience, for 
justice, for self-sacrifice seem to be the central 
motives of the other great books we have stud- 
ied, the central motive here would seem to be 
man's longing and need for hope. Yet we should 
be careful not to interpret that hope either nar- 
rowly or personally. In its larger interpretation 
and meaning hope is that desire of the soul for 
what lies beyond its natural experience. 

The desire of the moth for the star. 

Of the day for the morrow. 
The devotion to something afar 

From the sphere of our sorrow. 

Nor should we forget that the faculty of imag- 
ination covers the past as well as the future; that 
it endows us with all the delights of memory as 
well as those of hope. By means of it we can 
rebuild in a moment's time, "glittering cities of 
the plain," can fashion in an instant, for the 
mind's enjoyment, a world gone by; may sum- 
mon days departed and recall vanished delights; 
may people the hour with kings of old, or deck it 
in wonders yet to be. It reminds one, does it not, 
of Aladdin's power? And Aladdin's lamp, as we 



THE ARABIAN NIGHTS 145 

read of it, has a strange familiarity in our hands; 
we have in some experience of our own felt the 
touch of it. We have been in this place before. 
Man's love of the wonderful, his desire for 
the unattainable, that first; then, the wonderful 
and the seemingly unattainable attained quickly 
and with ease by the spirit; here in these two 
things lie the springs of all hope and the sources 
of all romance. 

To hope till hope creates 
From' its own wreck the thing it contemplates. 

You and I, individually, may fail of this glori- 
ous hope, and the old faculty of picturing what 
may be may grow dull in us; but the race will 
continue to hope and imagine. Always, we con- 
ceive, man will imagine daringly and hope 
superbly; and as long as he does the "Arabian 
Nights," or tales similarly true in daring and 
superb imagery, will be accounted among the 
world's greatest books.j 



CHAPTER IX 

DON QUIXOTE ( 

Don Diego asked his son what he thought of the stranger. " I 
think, sir," said Don Lorenzo, " that it is not in the power of all the 
physicians and scribes in the world to cure his distemper. He is a 
diversified madman, with many lucid intervals." 

Don Quixote. 

Shakespeare embodied generic types rather than individuals. In 
this Cervantes alone approached him ; and Don Quixote and Sancho, 
like the men and women of Shakespeare, are the contemporaries of 
every generation, because they are not products of an artificial and 
transitory generation, because they are not products of an artificial 
and transitory society, but because they are animated by the prim- 
eval and unchanging forces of that humanity. 

LOWBLI.. 

While "Don Quixote" falls readily under the 
head of one of the greatest books in the world, 
yet it differs in many ways so largely from most 
of the others as to seem to stand in a class almost 
by itself. Centered around the character of one 
man though it is, there is a breadth and univer- 
sality in the tale unparalleled in any of the great 
books we have so far studied. The others are 
the stories of certain great characters in particu- 
lar circumstance, or, as in the case'of the "Ara- 
bian Nights," of many characters in particu- 
lar and extraordinary circumstance; but "Don 
Quixote" is the story of one man's journey 



DON QUIXOTE 147 

through a world of entirely usual yet infinitely 
varied happening. 

The story wanders and runs on as does a road, 
in and out of town and fields and forest, past inns 
and hospitable and inhospitable dwellings; up 
lonely steeps and into far valleys fertile in ad- 
venture; a kind of highway it is, given over to 
humanity. Following it one meets on that high- 
way many who come and go, a world of people 
kind and unkind, foolish and partly wise, selfish 
and generous, nobles and criminals; but one 
meets one character, most notable of them all. 
He goes in full armor and is not a man after 
the manner or fashion of his day; he is some 
one different and unlike. He is mounted on a 
scrawny horse, and behind him on a dappled ass 
rides one Sancho Panza, who acts to him as 
squire. And this man, dressed out of season 
in anachronistic armor and bent on high and 
untimely adventure, is Don Quixote. 

Cervantes was born in Spain at Alcala de 
Henares in 1547 and he died in 1616. "Don 
Quixote," which he wrote when he was about to 
be old, was published in 1605. To the writing of 
it, besides his keen intellect and nearly matchless 
observation, Cervantea brought an unusual fund 
of experience. Born in an age full of color and 



148 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

adventure, his life was even for that age a highly 
colored and adventurous one; a student, a trav- 
eler, a soldier enlisted under Don Juan of 
Austria, he fought valiantly against the Turks, 
lost his left hand in one engagement, and thought 
it a trifling price to pay for the honor of partak- 
ing in so great an action. Later, captured by a 
Corsair captain, he was a slave in captivity for 
some five or more years, enduring many hard- 
ships. To free himself and his fellow-prisoners he 
continually risked his life. He was ransomed at 
last, however, by his relatives and friends. He 
returned to Spain at thirty-three, having spent 
*'ten years of manhood amidst such varieties 
of travel, adventure, enterprise, and suffering as 
must have sufl5ced to sober very considerably 
the lively temperament, and at the same time 
to mature, enlarge, and strengtheh the powerful 
understanding with which he had been gifted by 
nature." 

He again followed the profession of arms, but 
abandoned that career at last and devoted him- 
self to literature. 

Writing at first for the stage, during his years 
of effort along these lines, he found but indiffer- 
ent success; but the publication of the first part 
of his "Don Quixote" brought him almost 
immediate fame. It was read by all classes in all 



DON QUIXOTE 149 

places, by old and young. It is told by Barrano 
Porrena of Philip III, that "the king, standing 
one day in the palace of Madrid, observed 
a certain student with a book in his hand on 
the opposite banks of the Manzanares. He was 
reading, but every now and then he interrupted 
his reading, and gave himself violent blows upon 
the forehead, accompanied with innumerable 
motions of ecstasy and mirthfulness. ''That 
student,' said the king, 'is either out of his wits, 
or reading the history of Don Quixote.'" 

Cervantes, while his "Don Quixote" was 
received so enthusiastically, met also with much 
envy and detraction at the hands of many eon- 
temporary authors; but none of this seems to 
have greatly harassed him or much altered his 
natural poise. In 1615 he published the second 
part of "Don Quixote." He died the following 
year, on April 18. Most of his biographers 
remember to point out to us that he left his world 
on the same day of the same year as did Shake- 
speare. 

It has been sometimes supposed that Cer- 
vantes wrote his "Don Quixote" to satirize 
and help put out of fashion knight-errantry. 
One has only to place the book in its own 
century, however, to know this supposition to be 
wrong. Knight-errantry, in the form deseribed 



150 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

by Cervantes, had very long been out of date. 
The cavalier had long before taken the place of 
the knight. That the book was intended to satir- 
ize the absurd worship of a dead romance is not 
untenable; but the larger symbolism and mean- 
ing of it, as one studies it carefully, dispose ami- 
cably enough of all clashing theories. 

Cervantes' purposes and attitude of mind are 
very nobly conceived by Lockhart in his valu- 
able "Life of Cervantes." He notes that: "One 
of the greatest triumphs of his [Cervantes] skill 
is the success with which he continually pre- 
vents us from confounding the absurdities of the 
knight-errant with the generous aspirations of 
the cavalier. For to the last, even in the midst 
of madness, we respect Don Quixote himself. We 
pity the delusion, we laugh at the situation, 
but we revere, in spite of every ludicrous accom- 
paniment, and of every insane exertion, the noble 
spirit of the Castilian gentleman; and we feel, in 
every page, that we are perusing the work, not 
of a heartless scoffer, a cold-blooded satirist, 
but of a calm and enlightened mind, in which 
true wisdom had grown up by the side of true 
experience, — of one whose genius moved in a 
sphere too lofty for mere derision, of one who 
knew human nature too well not to respect it, 
of one, finally, who, beneath a mask of apparent 



DON QUIXOTE 151 

levity, aspired to commune with the noblest 
principles of humanity; and, above all, to give 
form and expression to the noblest feelings of the 
national character of Spain. . . . Others have 
been content with the display of wit, satire, 
eloquence — and some of them have displayed 
all these with the most admirable skill and power; 
but he who rises from the perusal of * Don Quixote ' 
thinks of the wit, the satire, the eloquence of 
Cervantes but as the accessories and lesser orna- 
ments of a picture of national life and manners 
by far the most perfect and glowing that was 
ever embodied in one piece of composition; a 
picture, the possession of which alone will be 
sufficient to preserve, in freshness and honour, 
the Spanish name and character." 

THE STORY OF DON QUIXOTE 

It is impossible in an article of this length to 
tell at all fully the story of "Don Quixote." It 
is a thing of so much detail and adventure that 
it does not lend itself to a brief recital ; there are 
in it so many divisions, subdivisions, stories 
within stories, so many happenings, and these 
happenings intricate and allied, as they are in life 
itself. On the other hand, the framework or out- 
line of the story is simple, too simple, indeed, to 
give one an adequate idea of the very varied 



152 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

whole. Our only . hope lies in a middle course, 
namely, to try to give the outline and some idea, 
if only very briefly, of the variety of adventure 
which goes to the making of this great book. 

The story starts out like a tale told intimately 
by one who loved to tell it : — 

At a certain village in La Mancha, of which I cannot 
remember the name, there lived not long ago one of those 
old-fashioned gentlemen who are never without a lance 
upon a rack, an old target, a lean horse, and a greyhound. 
His diet consisted more of beef than mutton; and with 
minced meat on most nights, lentils on Fridays, griefs and 
groans on Saturdays, and a pigeon extraordinary on Sun- 
days, he consumed three-quarters of his revenue; the rest 
was laid out in a plush coat, velvet breeches, with slippers 
of the same, for holidays; and a suit of the very best home- 
spun cloth, which he bestowed on himself for working days. 
His whole family was a housekeeper something turned of 
forty, a niece not twenty, and a man that served him in 
the house and in the field, and could saddle a horse, and 
handle the pruning-hook. 

Besides the housekeeper and niece we note 
two friends mentioned early in the story, the 
curate of the parish, and one Nicholas, the bar- 
ber and surgeon of the town, it being common in 
those days for the two professions to exist under 
one cap. 

The passion of this gentleman, Quixada or 
Quixote, as he comes later to be called, the hero 



DON QUIXOTE 153 

of the tale, seems to have been for the reading of 
books of knight-errantry, wherein he would so 
lose himself as to forget whether the time was 
day or night, or whether it was duty or pleasure 
that called him. So because of sleeping little and 
reading much, he did, indeed, lose at last the 
cleB,r,use of his reason. "A world of disorderly 
notions" crowded into his poor brain and re- 
mained there, so that in time his head was full of 
nothing but enchantments, challenges, battles, 
wounds, complaints, torments, and "abundance 
of stuff and impossibilities." He believed all 
that he read in his books of knight-errantry to 
be actual and at hand; and thought himself 
called with a special calling to take up the pro- 
fession of a wandering knight. It is well to note 
carefully what Cervantes tells us of Don Quix- 
ote's actual purpose; and to observe how in that 
purpose Don Quixote's own pleasure and honor 
were bound up with his service to others. 

For now he thought it convenient and necessary, as well 
for the increase of his own honour, ... as the service of 
the public, to turn knight-errant; that thus imitating those 
knights-errant of whom he had read, redressing all manner 
of grievances, and exposing himself to danger on all occa- 
sions, at last, after a happy conclusion of his enterprises, 
he might purchase everlasting honour and renown. 

With all this in mind he fitted out, and patched 



154 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

up as best he might an old suit of armor; selected 
for himself a horse, who, though lean and forlorn 
enough, was to the prejudiced eye of Don Quix- 
ote above all the horses in the world. This horse 
he dubbed Rosinante. 
So being equipped he 

thought it now a crime to deny himself any longer to the 
injured world, that wanted such a deliverer; the more when 
he considered what grievances he was to redress, what 
wrongs and injuries to remove, what abuses to correct, 
and what duties to discharge. 

But it was to him unthinkable that there 
should be any knight without a lady-love; for 
without one, to whom indeed could he dedicate 
his valor and on whom bestow the trophies of his 
prowess? Now there lived one not far away in 
Toboso, a country lass, upon whom he resolved 
to bestow the distinction of his chivalrous devo- 
tion. Deeming it necessary she should have a 
name resembling, at the very least, the name of 
some princess or lady of high degree, such as one 
encounters in ancient tales of chivalry, he deter- 
mined to call her Dulcinea del Toboso. 

Having, then, without her knowledge or con- 
sent, so elected her the lady of his soul, and 
having secretly donned his armor, he mounted 
Rosinante, and one morning before day rode out 
in search of adventure. But, first of all, he 



DON QUIXOTE 155 

resolved lie must find some one who would dub 
him knight and thus give sanction to his pur- 
pose. 

Riding he came at last to an inn which he at 
once took to be some castle. Here after much 
astonishment, and some initial misunderstand- 
ing, the innkeeper, seeing him to be mad, yielded 
to his entreaties and went through some form of 
knighting him. 

Don Quixote, desiring to show his prowess, 
was now not long in finding adventure and some 
one he might challenge. A good many people by 
Don Quixote's exploits having been set by the 
ears, the innkeeper was finally glad enough to be 
rid of the disturbing stranger, and the whole 
expedition ended ingloriously but not unkindly 
by a good-hearted peasant bringing home the 
worn and wounded and over-valorous Don 
Quixote. 

Meantime Don Quixote's housekeeper and 
niece worried much over his absence and con- 
sulted with Perez the curate and Nicholas the 
barber. The housekeeper, guessing aright what 
had happened, laid the whole mischance to Don 
Quixote's reading of the detested books of knight- 
errantry. "May Satan and Barabbas e'en take 
all such books that have thus cracked the best 
headpiece in all La Mancha!" 



156 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

Even while they were discussing the matter 
Don Quixote, in the care of the countryman, sore 
and much battered, returned. The housekeeper 
and his niece got him to bed and at his urgent 
request left him to his rest. Meanwhile the 
curate and the barber consulted and resolved on 
a course of action which they thought wise, and 
which was this : They would burn those volumes 
in Don Quixote's library which had been so 
largely to blame for his mental downfall, also 
they would board up and stop up the door to his 
study and tell him when he desired to go to it 
that the study and all it contained had been car- 
ried away by some powerful enchanter, "for 
they hoped the effect would cease when they 
had taken away the cause." 

But as might more reasonably have been 
expected this, of course, but added fuel to the 
fire of Don Quixote's madness. He was resolved 
now only the more that his services as a knight 
were needed to break down the power of all such 
wicked enchanters and to redress this and other 
grievous wrongs. 

Meanwhile he persuaded one of his neighbors, 
Sancho Panza, an honest and poor country fel- 
low, to go with him, as his squire, seeking ad- 
venture, offering him many inducements and 
promises and not forgetting to tell him 



DON QUIXOTE 157 

it was likely such an adventure would present itself, as 
might secure him the conquest of some island in the time 
that he might be picking up a straw or two, and then the 
squire might promise himself to be made governor of the 
place. 

Having agreed, then, on when to begin their 
journey, Don Quixote on Rosinante and Sancho 
on Dapple, his gray ass, rode away from the vil- 
lage one night, secretly, Don Quixote without so 
much as a thought for his niece and housekeeper 
and friends, and Sancho Panza without bidding 
good-bye to his wife and children, and with his 
head full of the promise of the island, of which 
as they jogged on Sancho did not fail to remind 
Don Quixote. 

"I beseech your worship. Sir Knight-errant," quoth 
Sancho to his master, "be sure you don't forget what you 
promised me about the island; for I dare say I shall make 
shift to govern it, let it be never so big." 

From here on the story is one of innumerable 
adventures, in all of which Don Quixote main- 
tains his valorous and mad resolve to redress 
wrongs, and, by the might and glory of his pur- 
pose and his prowess, to set the world right, in 
his own manner. 

As in the "Arabian Nights," the main story — 
that of Don Quixote himself, like that of She- 
herazade — runs like a slender thread through 



158 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

the whole book, while strung on it, hiding and 
yet attesting it, are all those pearls of adventure, 
some more nearly perfect than others, but all 
held together by the thread of the main story. 

It would be as impossible to touch on them 
all singly here as in the essay on the "Arabian 
Nights" it was impossible to deal separately 
with those many and beautiful Eastern tales. 
As in that great work, here, too, some of the 
adventures are rare gems, while others do not 
lack flaws to make them of less worth. Those 
best known to many are perhaps the famous 
attack on the windmills, the exquisite story of 
Marcella and the shepherds, the adventure of the 
Biscayan lady, the more famous happenings at 
the inn where Sancho was tossed in a blanket, 
those adventures of Don Quixote relating to 
Mambrino's helmet, the freeing of the criminals 
who are on their way to the galleys, the battle 
with the wineskins, etc. 

Meantime, while all these adventures are being 
had, we find that the two friends of Don Quixote, 
the barber and curate, have been much disturbed 
at his second absence and, having followed him 
in disguise, seek by a trickery of kind intent to 
decoy Don Quixote back to his home, that they 
may there care for him and cure him of his mad- 
ness. 



DON QUIXOTE 159 

But kind as are these two men, the means 
they employ are not wise means, so that in the 
end they do but lead to Don Quixote's longer 
absence and more extended adventure. It is 
here that we come on the story of Cardenio and 
Lucinda and Dorothea. This leads on to still 
others. The whole scheme broadens out and is 
admirably devised by the author to introduce 
new happening and other characters. There is 
now brought together an entire party of human 
beings whose interests are intricately mingled 
and intermingled. Each one has a human 
trouble and purpose of his own. Each tells some 
story which adds still other adventures and 
interests to the tale. Under the author's hands 
a world of fiction and reality like our own now 
takes on form; and before our eyes assembles, in 
likely circumstance and a little time, a friendly, 
interesting, companionable company of men and 
women, all intensely personal and real, all hu- 
manly egotistical, self-centered, yet meaning 
to be kind; while among them, never lessened, 
never lost sight of, moves the figure of Don 
Quixote himself, supreme egotist of them all, 
yet among them all, mad though he is, the one 
person devoted wholly, singly to the service of 
others. You have seen how other paths and 
roads curve and intersect and cross and recross 



160 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

and lead into a main highway; but wider, more 
traveled, always distinguishable, of broader pur- 
pose and of more import, the highway goes on 
unhindered; it is like that. 

It is not until a good while later that the bar- 
ber and curate, clumsily enough, as such things 
are generally accomplished in real life, manage to 
deal with the mad hero and to get him home. 
Don Quixote, not until after many battering 
adventures, returns at last to his village, not 
even, now, mounted on Rosinante but lying 
ingloriously sick and weak on a hay-cart drawn 
by oxen. A boy runs ahead and tells the house- 
keeper and niece. These wail piteously at the 
plight of Don Quixote. Sancho's wife Teresa 
runs to meet Sancho and listens with rapt delight 
to the tales he tells of the island he is one day to 
govern, but which has not yet fallen into his or 
his master's fortunes. 

The first volume ends here with the return of 
the knight and squire and the promise of the 
author to tell more of Don Quixote's further and 
later adventures. 

In the second volume, Don Quixote starts 
out once again and Sancho with him. New ad- 
ventures follow, too many to mention here. 

When the long story at last closes it is in the 
following manner: — ^ 



DON QUIXOTE 161 

By means of a device of the barber and curate, 
once more Don Quixote is persuaded to return 
to his home village. There these two, who this 
time have gone ahead of him, receive him with 
open arms. There, too, the housekeeper and 
niece rejoice once more to see him, weep over 
him, and get him to bed and tend him with lov- 
ing care. 

But "whether from melancholy," or "by the 
disposition of heaven that so ordered it," a fever 
now overtakes him. His niece and housekeeper 
stay by him and Sancho never stirs from his 
master's bedside. 

Suddenly one day — it is as though the fever 
had cleared his mind — Don Quixote wakes to a 
sense of God's mercy and tells his niece to send 
for the curate and the barber. Then she ques- 
tions him as to these mercies of God to which he 
alludes : — 

** The mercies, niece," answered Don Quixote, "are those 
that Heaven has this moment vouchsafed to me, which, 
as I said, my sins do not prevent. My judgment is now 
free and clear, and the murky clouds of ignorance removed, 
which my painful and continual reading of those detest- 
able books of knight-errantry cast over me. Now I per- 
ceive their nonsense and deceit, and am only sorry the dis- 
covery happens so late, when I want time to make some 
amends by reading others that should enlighten my soul. 
I find, niece, that I am at the point of death; and I 



162 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

would meet it in such a manner as to show that my Hfe 
has not been so evil as to leave me the character of a 
madman.'* 

Don Quixote then begs for a confessor to 
shrive him and a scrivener to make his will. He 
is, indeed, now returned to his senses, though his 
niece and housekeeper and friends can hardly 
credit it. 

He who started out mad on his mad adven- 
tures, dies in his bed, sane at the last. The men- 
tal illness which had long clouded "the best 
headpiece in La Mancha " has cleared away now. 
One finds at the end of the volume a serene Kght 
like that which sometimes comes in the west 
at the end of a day which has been uncertain and 
clouded. The old follies and enchantments are 
melted away like so many clouds; the old delu- 
sions of grandeur, the high and foolish ambitions 
that possessed him, he renounces now, sanely, 
as follies and untruths. Humbly and as a Chris- 
tian, with that gentleness and courtesy which 
even his madness at the worst had never unseated 
from his soul, he accepts the world for what it is. 
Renouncing all castles and imagined estates and 
high kinships to which his madness •had laid 
claim, he now disposes wisely and generously of 
his meager possessions to those who shall sur- 
vive him, and commends his soul humbly and 



DON QUIXOTE 163 

honorably to God, and with clean hands and 
the heart of a child goes to his Maker. 

There are in all literature few death-scenes so 
touching as that in which the soul of the high- 
minded Don Quixote goes by, while those other 
simple souls — so little understanding all the 
pity and high meaning of his former madness — 
stand about sadly. The niece and housekeeper 
are there with swollen eyes; the barber and the 
curate, mourning and sorrowful; and Sancho, 
having to no avail begged and advised his be- 
loved master of the sheer madness of dying 
" without ado, without being killed by anybody," 
and more such affectionate and foolish talk, 
bursts into tears. In all these kindnesses and 
gentlenesses one sees but the reflected light of 
those shining and lovable qualities which show 
clear in Don Quixote himself only the more 
clearly as his day draws to its close. 

For, indeed, as on some occasion has been observed; 
whilst Don Quixote was plain Alonso Quixada, the Good, 
and whilst he was Don Quixote de la Mancha, he was ever 
of pleasant humour and agreeable behaviour, and therefore 
he was not only beloved by his family, but by every one 
that knew him. 

The character of Don Quixote is drawn with 
an amazing cleverness and consistency. Here is 
a master hand at work. Each chapter is con- 



164 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

trived not only to add color and adventure to 
the story, but to lend a kind of insistence to tlie 
great character that is being drawn; here one 
stroke, delicate and seemingly unimportant, 
there another, but the picture grows, and there 
before us to the life, living, is Don Quixote. 

Now look at the picture and examine the 
character: Here is a man essentially noble and 
devoted, sensitive to beauty and goodness as few 
are; an almost perfect instrument, one would 
say, for the service of mankind, — a nature gen- 
tle and serviceable, yet with one fatal flaw; some- 
thing somewhere — some unadaptability, some 
supersensitiveness, some egotism, call it what 
you will — which unfits him; something which 
prevents him from seeing life and its needs as 
they really are. This fact or that, he would 
change and alter to suit his fancy; he prefers to 
believe things to be what he wants them to be. 

And you will note this is not imagination, — 
as in the case of Sheherazade, — though it has 
a certain resemblance to it. In imagining, the 
mind is wholly conscious that it does but 
imagine; it remains complete master of itself; 
it can at one and the same time admit truth and 
enjoy fancy. For imagination is a quality wholly 
controlled by the reason. Howsoever far fancy 
may fly, it comes back to reality as a bird which 



DON QUIXOTE 165 

knows its own limitations returns to the home 
bough and nest; imagination returns invariably 
to life as it is. But the fancy and self-deception 
and delusion of Don Quixote are rather the 
result of some fatal miscalculation, some essen- 
tial lack of truth in the beginning, some lack of 
love of truth. You will notice how Don Quixote 
has all the other lovable or desirable qualities 
that go to the making of an ideal and serviceable 
nature, but he has not innately the desire to see 
things truthfully as they are. He has fire and 
vigor and endurance; he has the longing to right 
wrong, to succor the helpless and defend the 
oppressed; he holds his life light and as of little 
worth save to serve, in the name of valor and 
gentleness and honor; but he has not that crown- 
ing virtue, that necessary basis of all reasonable- 
ness, that inner beauty of the soul, that white, 
passionate love of truth, which would have 
saved him. 

Ingeniously his author has laid Don Quixote's 
madness to the reading of exaggerated books 
of chivalry. These were themselves lacking in 
truth. It must have happened, you see, that 
their high-sounding adventures lay along the 
line of Don Quixote's own desires for serving the 
world; and blinded by those desires, indifferent 
to the truth, he stumbles into the folly and false- 



166 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

ness of believing these books to be what they 
are not, because they are so nearly what he 
would like them to be. 

As to these books we are shown, in clever 
contrast to Don Quixote's madness and lack of 
truth, the simple, truthful nature of Don Quix- 
ote's niece. She is not blinded by her own desires, 
and she looks the truth in the face with clear 
young eyes : — 

"Oh, sir," said the niece, "have a care what you say; 
all the stories of knights-errant are but Hes and fables." 

At this Don Quixote is beside himself. This 
clear-seeing girl has touched on a tender spot, has 
laid hand on something dear to him, has drawn 
away a veil and tried to show him that this thing 
which he wishes to believe is untruthful. This 
he cannot endure; anything else, but not this. 
He is determined to believe that these tales and 
fables, which fit so well with his fancy, are true. 
These books say, for instance, that a famous 
knight did with one blow of his sword sever the 
heads of seven giants; and since it were desirable 
to have such power, — so be it. In other words, 
let us accept that for truth which we find desir- 
able, believe what we find it pleasant to believe, 
let facts be what they may. So Don Quixote 
not only believes the knights of old to have pos- 



DON QUIXOTE 167 

sessed superhuman powers, but somewhat old 
and feeble though he is himself, he will, because 
he desires to do so — believe himself to be pos- 
sessed of such powers not less. To his niece we 
find him replying : — 

" Now by the powerful Sustainer of my being ! ... Is it 
possible that a young baggage who scarce knows her bob- 
bins from a bodkin should presume to set to with her tongue, 
and censure the histories of knights-errant." 

There is more of this; then the girl, still 
insisting on the unconscious clear truth, urges, 
a little pleadingly this time, appealing to his 
reason : — 

" Bless me, dear Uncle, that you should know so much as 
to be able, if there was occasion, to get up into a pulpit, 
or preach in the streets, and yet be so strangely mistaken, 
so grossly blind of understanding, as to fancy a man of 
your years and infirmity can be strong and vaHant; that 
you can set everything right, and force stubborn malice 
to bend, when you yourself stoop beneath the burden of 
age; and what is yet more odd, that you are a knight, when 
it is well known you are none!" 

We should hate him — this Don Quixote with 
his insistence on his own opinion, with his deter- 
mination to have his own way — " Come Heaven, 
come Hell" (and very generally. Hell it is for 
himself and all who love him) but Cervantes was 
himself great enough of heart to see the pity 
that lies at the heart of all egotism, not only the 



168 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

human folly, but the human pity of it, and so he 
drew his Don Quixote so that we could see the 
pity of it too. Cervantes wished to draw a great 
and yet lovable egotist, and to make a supreme 
egotist whom one still can love was obliged to 
make him mad. So here is nothing to rouse one's 
ire, nothing to condemn; gentle and pitiable he 
has made his knight, and we grow gentle and 
pitiful reading of him. Here laughter is close to 
tears. For Don Quixote's determination to see 
the world as it is not, and only as he washes it to 
be results in adventures that are near to clear 
humor. For humor is at bottom just that — the 
surprise of the unlikely; and here, owing to Don 
Quixote's determination to see everything as it 
is not, there is perpetually the surprise of the 
unlikely. You see how well everything falls into 
place and how consistently and on what large 
lines the book is planned. 

When Sancho and Don Quixote start off, the 
humor of the thing runs with them every step of 
the way, like a faithful page at their stirrups. 
They picture what wealth shall be theirs by 
means of their adventures. Sancho sees himself 
risen to such distinction that he shall have even 
a special barber for himself. Might he not have 
one? — not unlikely? Don Quixote answers him 
confidently: "Do but leave the matter of the 



DON QUIXOTE 169 

barber to me." — "Do but take care you be a 
king," begs Sancho, "and I an earl." — "Never 
doubt it," replied Don Quixote. 

The evasion of truth, the direct denial of 
truth, the implied denial of truth, — all these 
are played on here, there, everywhere through- 
out the tale. Over and over Don Quixote insists 
the world shall be not as it is, but as he wishes 
it to be. When his own follies have resulted in 
disaster, he turns his head away from that truth 
also and will never admit himself to have been at 
fault. The truth stares him in the face, but he 
turns away from it, refusing to recognize it, and 
declares instead that evil enchanters who have 
some personal grudge against him (you note here 
the subtle egotism and also the author's keen 
knowledge of madness with its recurring delu- 
sions of persecution) have wrought this calamity. 
Inns are not inns, but castles; ill-favored wenches 
are peerless beauties, barbers' basins are golden 
helmets, etc. He does not even wait for any one 
to tell him the facts — he has them already 
altered to suit his fancy. 

As an example: Sancho Panza has gone on a 
pretended expedition to interview in the name 
of Don Quixote the country lass whom Don 
Quixote has elected lady of his soul. Don Quix- 
ote asks eagerly for Sancho's news, as Sancho 



170 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

returns, yet will not even wait the telling 
of it. 

"You arrived, and how was that queen of beauty then 
employed? On my conscience, thou found'st her stringing 
of orient pearls, or embroidering some curious device in 
gold for me her captive knight; was it not so, my Sancho?** 
— "No, faith," answered the squire, "I found her winnow- 
ing a parcel of wheat very seriously in the back yard." — 
"Then," said the Don, "you may rest assured, that every 
corn of that wheat was a grain of pearl, since she did it the 
honour of touching it with her divine hand. Didst thou 
observe the quality of the wheat, was it not of the finest 
sort?" — " Very indifferent, I thought," said the squire. — 
" Well, this, at least, you must allow ; it must make the finest, 
whitest bread if sifted by her white hands. But go on; 
when you delivered my letter, did she kiss it? Did she 
treasure it in her bosom, or what ceremony did she use 
worthy such a letter? How did she behave herself?" — 
"¥iTiy, truly, sir," answered Sancho, "when I offered her 
the letter, she was very busy handling her sieve; *And 
prythee, honest friend,' said she, *do so much as lay that 
letter down upon that sack there; I cannot read it till I have 
winnowed out what is in my hands.'" — "0 unparalleled 
discretion!" cried Don Quixote; "she knew that a perusal 
required leisure, and therefore deferred it, for her more 
pleasing and private hours." 

So again and again, as Sancho holds out the 
simple truth to him, Don Quixote puts it aside 
and substitutes that which he wishes might he the 
truth. You see the fine drawing of it and how 
well, in page after page, far more than is here 



DON QUIXOTE 171 

quoted, the same thing is sustained; we see the 
thing now in this light, now in that; or we hear 
the theme now in this key, now in another; now 
given out by flutes and oboes as it were, now 
taken up by the strings, now blared forth by the 
brasses. 

In the adventure of the criminals on their way 
to the galleys, we have the same theme. Don 
Quixote sees a line of miscreants who, for seri- 
ous offenses, crimes against society, are being led 
in chains to just punishment. Straightway his 
desire does away with all this truth. He will not 
have it that these men are criminals; they are 
rather innocent men oppressed whom he must 
succor and release from the officer of the law who 
leads them. For Don Quixote will not see this 
man to be an officer of the law, but only an 
oppressor of innocence. 

"Thou art a cat and a rat and a coward to 
boot," Don Quixote says to him. Then he man- 
ages by violence to free the convicts of their 
chains, never admitting that he is letting loose 
on society dangers and evils. When Sancho 
ventures to point this out to him and remon- 
strate with him, we have this, said in Don Quix- 
ote's best manner : — 

"You duffle-headed clown, is it for a knight-errant, when 
he meets with people laden with chains, and under oppres- 



172 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

sion, to examine whether they are in those circumstances 
for their crimes or only through misfortune? We are only 
to relieve the afllicted, to look on their distress, and not on 
their crimes. I met a company of poor wretches, who went 
along sorrowful, dejected, linked together like the beads 
of a rosary; whereupon I did what my conscience and my 
profession obliged me to. And what has any man to say to 
this? If any one dares say otherwise ... I say he knows 
little of knight-errantry, and lies like a baseborn villain 
and this I will make him know more effectually, with the 
convincing edge of my sword!" This said with a grim look 
he fixed himself in his stirrups and pulled his helm over his 
brows. 

In the inimitable adventure of Mambrino's hel- 
met, we have the same thing in still another and 
lighter key. Don Quixote sees coming toward 
him a traveling barber riding an ass, and who 
wears on his head to protect his hat from rain his 
brass barber's basin. Immediately Don Quix- 
ote's fancy sees in the traveler a knight wearing 
a helmet of gold, which is the famous Malbrino's 
helmet, of which he has read in some of his musty 
books of knight-errantry. Again Sancho urges 
him that this is not so, but what we have in reply 
is the following : — 

"How can I be mistaken, thou eternal misbeliever!" 
cried Don Quixote; "dost thou not see that knight that 
conies riding up directly towards us upon a dapple-grey 
steed, with a helmet of gold on his head ? " — "I see what 
1 see," replied Sancho, "and the devil of anything I can 



DON QUIXOTE 173 

spy but a fellow on such another grey ass as mine is, with 
something that ghtters o' top of his head." — "I tell thee, 
that is Mambrino's helmet," replied Don Quixote; "do 
thou stand at a distance, and leave me to deal with him; 
thou shalt see, that without trifling away so much as a 
moment in needless talk, I will finish this adventure, and 
possess myself of the desired helmet." 

The barber, seeing himself descended on by 
what appears to be an apparition, throws himself 
off his ass and scuttles away for dear life, leaving 
the basin behind. Don Quixote seizes it, tri- 
umphant, and though he has it in his very hand 
and under the feel of his very fingers, he still 
declares it to be a helmet and claps it on his head 
as such. Sancho between fear and mirth very 
nearly but not quite laughs outright. 

"What does the fool grin at now?" cried Don Quixote. 

"I laugh," said he, "to think what a hugeous jolt-head 
he must needs have who was the owner of this same helmet 
that looks for all the world like a barber's basin." 

And just here we come to a notable point in the 
tale, to a fine turn in the highway, and get sight 
of a broad country ahead. For you notice that 
before this Sancho has disputed and combated 
his master's delusions and false assertions, but 
here the thing becomes too much for him; his 
master's madness here becomes too strong for his 
handling; it breaks down even his stout and 



174 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

stolid and practical manner. Don Quixote is 
self -deceived, — on himself be the penalty. But 
the world, as it happens, is so ordered that no 
man can fail, whether it be in truth or any other 
nobility, without affecting others than himself. 
So Don Quixote's self-deception begins to alter 
Sancho, and, as time goes on, affects others. 
His own mental integrity ruined, that of others 
is undermined somewhat. They can no longer 
deal with him on the basis of truth. They let 
him have his hobbies and let them go at that. 
In this way, he at last becomes separated from 
his fellows, alienated from his kind. It would 
seem as though Cervantes, long before modern 
science took up the term, conceived of madness 
as an alienation, and those who are mad as aliens. 
As the story goes on, as Don Quixote more and 
more indulges his delusions and further departs 
from strict intellectual and moral integrity and 
truth, more and more he is alienated from his 
kind, more and more he is a lonely figure, less 
and less can any one help him. There is no longer 
any exchange of opinions between himself and 
others, only his own exaggerated opinions as- 
serted dogmatically. He resents every dispute, 
every assertion which differs from his own, so 
that by and by his companions withdraw their 
converse. His intellectual integrity gone, un- 



DON QUIXOTE 175 

truthful himself to a very point of madness, 
those about him withdraw truth from him. 
They can no longer deal with him on any rea- 
sonable terms; he makes wild assertions and his 
friends and companions leave them at last undis- 
puted. This, you see, is the natural development 
and progress of all egotism. 

Besides the instances just quoted, we find, at a 
point where Don Quixote proposes some new and 
mad plan, this: his companions are "all struck 
with amazement at this new folly. . . but they 
came into his new design, and approved of his 
folly as if it were wise." 

Sancho, who has held out longest, in trying 
to cure his master of untruth, even Sancho 
finally gets to downright deception in dealing 
with him, that being, for a mind like Sancho's, 
the shortest cut, across the wide fields of their 
controversy, to peace. 

The curate and the barber and the bachelor, 
Don Quixote's friends, do the same, though for a 
better purpose. Those with whom Don Quixote 
meets in his adventures are all more or less set 
by the ears by this knight, who, however gentle 
and courtly by nature, is nevertheless like a kind 
of untruth incarnate. The whole reasonable order 
of living and of other people's lives is destroyed 
by the failure of one man to admit reasonably 



176 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

that things are as they are. In one of the best 
scenes at the inn, one of the most kindly and 
most humorous, the whole place is set in turmoil 
to sustain Don Quixote's mad assertions. At 
last all the parties who have been contending 
against him for the truth's sake, finally relinquish 
the truth for peace' sake : — 

But at last the matter was made up; the packsaddle was 
agreed to be horse furniture, the basin a helmet, and the 
inn a castle, till the day of judgment, if Don Quixote would 
have it so. 

THE CHARACTER OF SANCHO 

In splendid contrast to the character of Don 
Quixote, yet complementing it faithfully, and as 
matchless, is that of Sancho Panza. Practical, 
downright, given to calling a spade a spade, a 
man poor in wits as he is in purse, as frank to 
admit that the object of his expeditions is pelf 
as his master is zealous in asserting his object 
to be the succor of the distressed, he goes through 
the story from end to end, dull, faithful, amus- 
ing, trite; full of proverbs, perpetually calling 
attention to obvious facts, a kind of animated 
proverb, and concrete and very simple truth him- 
self. His language is like himself, dull, funny, 
practical, obvious, absurdly sensible, as when (it 
is only one of many instances) he declares, with 



DON QUIXOTE [177 

cheer and downright sincerity, when he is about 
to start away on an errand: "For the sooner I go 
the sooner shall I come back; and the way to 
be gone is not to stay here." He pretends no- 
thing, not he. He goes through sorry adven- 
tures with a wry face and through pleasant ones 
with a happy countenance. Good humor, sin- 
cerity, and a craving nature, these are his; but his 
craving is no immaterial and high-flown thing, 
like that of his master; what he most craves, 
barring always the craving of that fever to be 
governor of an island with which Don Quixote 
has inoculated him early in the story, is a com- 
fortable place to sleep and good things to eat. 
There is, perhaps, no place in the book quite so 
happy, so contented, in any event, as the descrip- 
tion of Sancho at the wedding of Comacho, 
ladling out pullets and geese for himself with a 
saucepan and falling to on the feast. 

Sancho's wife Teresa is as simple as he, a down- 
right piece of that stupid yet refreshing good 
sense and honesty not uncommon in many of her 
class; cleverly matched with Sancho, yet with a 
little touch of the cleverness and tact of the 
feminine added. 

In the second part of the "Adventures of 
Don Quixote" — where the coarse horseplay 
and jests at the home of the Duke and 



178 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

Duchess pall on one, — the letters of Sancho 
and Teresa redeem the whole; those of Teresa 
to the Duchess are about as good as anything 
in the whole book. 

But though Teresa maintains her good sense 
almost — not quite — unaffected by the mad 
adventures of Don Quixote, yet Sancho, more 
nearly associated with him, does not. Under 
the mad promises of his master, Sancho himself 
develops at last a madness of his own, and char- 
acteristically enough it turns on his own gain 
and loss. When he finds that the curate and the 
barber are going to take Don Quixote home to 
try and cure him, only the loss of the island that 
has been promised him looms large in Sancho's 
mind, blotting out all other consideration. His 
clumsy folly and frank greed show themselves 
suddenly in anger and a madness of his own; and 
for a moment he seems as demented as his master. 
What! would they take his master away from 
his adventures! Would they rob Sancho of his 
island, of which he may any minute gain posses- 
sion ! So he berates them for knaves. 

One could go on and on calling attention to 
the consistency, the humor, the wit, the charm 
of this great book, — for like other great books 
it is practically inexhaustible; but there is space 



DON QUIXOTE 179 

here only to sum up for better study the charac- 
ter of its hero. 

The character of Don Quixote is as human 
and universal, as broad, as far-reaching, one 
might say, as the adventure and canvas of the 
story. One cannot read of the mad, adventurous 
knight without in time coming to love him with 
a kind of tender devotedness. We are reminded 
of Charles Lamb saying (I know not where to 
find it, and quote only inexactly) that he would 
rather listen to the irrational talk of her he loved 
most (his beloved and aflflicted sister) than to 
listen to the wisdom of many sages. 

But there are other feelings than those of 
tenderness and devotion that this character 
draws out. As we know him better, we know 
him to be more than Don Quixote of La Mancha. 
It is not the blood of the Quixadas that gives 
him his distinction. He, like Ulysses, Faust, 
Christian, and the rest, is a child of the race it- 
self, and a brother to all of us. The adventures 
of thousands of men and women since the world 
began are bound up in his irrational hopes, — 
his mad egotism, his unlikely follies. He is the 
embodied spirit of all men who have so long 
believed their own opinions that they are no 
longer open to the reason of others; he recalls 
to us, though with less solemn tragedy, Lear, 



180 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

and many more; he is the spirit, too, of all young 
men as well, who push the realities of life aside, 
and instead of truth, will have only their own 
visions of life as they prefer to believe it to be. 
Here, too, met in this one great character, with 
their blood flowing in his veins as it were, are all 
those lost in their own beliefs, who have clung 
to their follies against fact and reason. Here, 
too, are all those harmed by the sophistry and 
unsound reasoning of others, men and women 
made mad by the countless systems and relig- 
ions and teachings of those who substitute theo- 
ries and mysteries and romance for the clear 
truths of life. We have passed by him often, 
touched hands with him a hundred times, this 
Don Quixote, and his eyes have looked out at us 
from under many other disguises than that of 
the rusty armor in which Cervantes clothes him. 
The character is not so particular as it is univer- 
sal. Some strange and striking familiarity is 
in it for each of us; for, indeed, this madness of 
Don Quixote, so strong in him, is a madness 
with which we are all, without doubt, severally 
affected in differing degrees. Don Quixote's 
irrational determination to believe as he wants 
to believe rather than as the facts warrant is 
something with which most of us are more or less 
possessed. 



DON QUIXOTE 181 

Lockhart observes that: "Don Quixote is 
not merely to be regarded as a Spanish Cavalier, 
filled with a Spanish madness, and exhibiting 
that madness in the eyes of Spaniards of every 
condition and rank of life, from the peasant to 
the grandee; — he is also the type of a more 
imiversal madness; — he is the symbol of Im- 
agination, continually struggling and contrasted 
with Reality; — he represents the eternal war- 
fare between Enthusiasm and Necessity — the 
eternal discrepancy between the aspirations and 
the occupation of man — the omnipotence and 
the vanity of human dreams." 

But the matter goes deeper even than this. 
Not only is "Don Quixote" faithful in its delin- 
eation of human nature, but it holds up again 
and again one of the desirable and great ideals of 
life for all of us to see. It insists again and again 
in its own manner, on one of the great funda- 
mental desires and needs of the human heart. 
Here, as in "Faust," the great lesson is taught 
and the great message delivered by negative 
means. "Faust," selfish almost up to the last, 
teaches as do few other characters the great les- 
son of self-sacrifice . Don Quixote, mad through 
a hundred and twenty-five chapters and regain- 
ing his reason only on his deathbed, teaches and 
sets forth the value and desirability of truth as 



182 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

no other character has ever done, and inspires us, 
as no other, to a better seeking of it. Reading of 
this madman, our own reason consciously or 
unconsciously becomes the clearer. These follies 
of his laughed at, in most cases, so kindly hy the 
author, shame us to relinquish a few follies of our 
own; the ruin of his life, the loss of his mental 
integrity through the indulgence of his unwar- 
ranted fancy, strike in us some fear lest we may 
have sacrificed our own integrity, our own knowl- 
edge of truth for something that at the time has 
seemed more desirable than the truth. Has our 
own reason been stultified by systems of elabo- 
rate beliefs foisted on us by others, or have we 
thought for ourselves? Have we flattered facts, 
and assumed what was not.^ Have we pretended 
or given royalty and titles to things that had 
none; cheated ourselves and others.^ Have we 
exaggerated trifles, tilted at windmills, laid 
stress on the unimportant, and overlooked the 
one thing of great and fundamental value? Or 
have we seen true, or, at least, desired to see true, 
as dear, pitiful Don Quixote until almost the 
very last did not? 

So even in the madness of this courteous Don 
Quixote there is a kind of hidden courtesy, — a 
sort of secret charity and high purpose in his left 
hand of which his right hand, for all its generous 



DON QUIXOTE 183 

giving, knows nothing. For the tale, even while 
amusing us, has succeeded in making beautiful 
that "sweet reasonableness" in which Don Quix- 
ote himself is so lacking. The very tragedy itself 
is thus softened, and that madness, which would 
make of the Knight of La Mancha one of the 
really tragic figures of literature, contrives only 
to make him instead one of the most lovable. 
Dignity, pity, kindness, madness, high purpose 
and unreasonableness and failure; out of all of 
which, by some genius of the author, is wrought 
a victory of the mind and a truth for the spirit. 
It is as though Cervantes had set himself to 
embody, in one memorable and striking figure, 
humanity itself as he saw it; humanity old, 
untruthful, deluded, wandering among a thou- 
sand cheats, clinging to outworn customs and 
beliefs, pretending to nobilities not its own, lend- 
ing itself here, there, everywhere among a 
thousand falsehoods; humanity with its ineffec- 
tual virtues, its imperfect vision; man with his 
wasted energies, his pitiful follies, his self- 
delusion, "infinitely childish, often admirably 
valiant, often touchingly kind; sitting down, 
amidst his momentary life, to debate of right and 
wrong and the attributes of the deity; rising up 
to do battle for an egg or die for an idea." Don 
Quixote is, indeed, a "diversified madman" 



184 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

whom "neither all the physicians nor the scribes 
of the world can cure of his distemper"; yet 
teaching and instilling, even by his very madness, 
a deeper reverence and longing for truth, and 
holding fast, in some chamber of his brain, the 
love of it himself and coming to it humbly and 
gratefully at the last. 



CHAPTER X 

PILGRIM'S PROGRESS 

Ingenious dreamer, in whose well-told tale 
Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail ; 
Whose hum'rous vein, strong sense, and simple style 
May teach the gayest, make the gravest smile ; 
Witty, and well employed, and like thy Lord, 
Speaking in parables his slighted word. 

COWPER. 

John Bunyan, we hope, is no wise our best theologian ; neither, 
unhappily, is theology our most attractive science ; yet which of our 
compends and treatises, nay, which of our romances and poems, 
lives in such mild sunshine as the good old " Pilgrim's Progress " in 
the memory of so many men ? 

Gablylb. 

Even those who regard Christianity itself as but a natural out- 
growth of the conscience and intellect, and yet desire to live nobly 
and make the best of themselves, can recognize familiar footprints 
in every step of Christian's journey. . . . We, too, every one of us, 
are pilgrims on the same road. 

Fboudb. 

It is, roughly, about two hundred and fifty 
years since the "Pilgrim's Progress" was written. 
In that time it has been translated into some 
seventy or eighty tongues and has become known 
all around the world; in its wide circuit second 
only to the Bible itself. Here is a remarkable 
history of a remarkable book — no other was 
ever, indeed, quite like it. 



186 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

When, questioning the reasons for its great- 
ness, we look into the life of John Bunyan, its 
author, we find him to have been a man of the 
people, with not more learning than could be got 
from scant schooling and the reading of a few 
books. His father a brazier, a worker in the 
coarser metals, Bunyan himself followed the 
same trade, working, as a young man, as a tinker, 
at the mending of pots and kettles, and working 
later in the Baptist church of his parish, by the 
word of God, at the mending of men's souls. 

TIMES IN WHICH BUNYAN LIVED 

Bunyan's life was lived in England (he was 
born there in 1628 and died there in 1688) during 
the times ®f Charles I, Cromwell, and Charles II. 
It was an age of fierce struggles, religious and 
otherwise — Royalist and Roundhead, Church 
of England and Puritan, set determinedly each 
against the other. Cromwell' s devoted fighting 
men — "Ironsides" — were picked not so much 
for their knowledge of war as for their religious 
fervor. Cromwell's great warlike enterprises 
were all undertaken with prayer. He and his 
officers would assemble and pray with tears for 
light and divine guidance before any important 
action was decided on. There did not lack fervid 
and devout souls who, rebelling against falsity 



PILGRIM'S PROGRESS 187 

of all kinds, claimed for themselves the free 
liberty of choice to be fervid and devout in their 
own fashion. Before Bunyan was born, our own 
Pilgrims had left a country where religious per- 
secution was general and religious freedom was 
difficult to obtain. Bunyan never left his coun- 
try. While not bitterly intolerant of the Crown, 
— some say even loyal to it, — he clung to 
religious freedom and remained at home to carry 
out there, consistently, courageously, his deep 
convictions. 

If the Puritanism of those days seems to us 
hardly less superstitious than must have seemed 
the teachings of the Established Church of that 
day to the Puritans, yet there is this notable 
difference: Puritanism was a more downright 
thing; it stood strongly for freedom and sin- 
cerity, and very especially it stood for freedom 
and sincerity in religion. 

In Bunyan's day a belief in a material hell 
that burned and in an everlasting punishment 
was as real and commonplace as scientific inves- 
tigation is in ours. "Hell, not in metaphor, but 
in hard and palpable fact, awaited the sinner." 
The Puritans, wishing to purify the Established 
Church, which had fallen into insincerities and 
corruption, established a worship based almost 
wholly on sincerity; and one part of their sin- 



188 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

cerity showed itself in their very literal interpre- 
tation of the Bible. They were tired of the mys- 
teries, the symbols and forms, to them without 
meaning, with which they found the Established 
Church overgrown. We can judge much of their 
purpose from the names by which history and 
their own times designate them: Puritans; Dis- 
senters; Nonconformists. 

During Cromwell's Protectorate, the Puritans 
were permitted more or less to follow their own 
beliefs. But during the reign of Charles I, as well 
as that of Charles II, matters went so far that 
the Nonconformists and Puritans were forbidden 
to hold their religious meetings. Not this alone, 
though this was enough to have stirred deeply the 
old sincerities of those sincere men and women, 
but they were commanded by the Crown to 
attend worship in the Established Church they 
had learned to hate and mistrust. And worse 
still: "Nonconformists refusing to attend wor- 
ship in the parish churches were to be imprisoned 
till they made their submission. Three months 
were allowed them to consider. If at the end of 
that time they were still obstinate, they were to 
be banished the realm; and if they subsequently 
returned to England without permission from 
the Crown, they were liable to execution as 
felons. This Act had fallen with the Long Par- 



PILGRIM'S PROGRESS 189 

liament, but at the Restoration it was held to 
have revived and to be still in force. The parish 
churches were cleared of their unordained minis- 
ters. The Dissenters' chapels were closed. . . . 
Their separate meetings were prohibited, and 
they were not only forbidden to worship in their 
own fashion, but they had to attend church, 
under penalties. The Bedford Baptists refused 
to obey. Their meeting-house in the town was 
shut up, but they continued to assemble in woods 
and outhouses, Bunyan preaching to them as 
before and going to the place in disguise." 

Bunyan was, of course, soon spied upon and 
brought to judgment. He refused stubbornly 
to give up his religious liberty; refused to go to 
church, even though he knew he must suffer the 
penalty of the law. He was arrested. It was told 
him that he could be free on bail until his trial 
if he would promise not to preach during the 
meantime; but he would make no such promise. 
The magistrates then, it is believed, did what 
they could to enable him to evade the law, but 
Bunyan was no man of evasions and would 
accept no compromise with his own soul. He 
kept his resolve. The law, on the other hand, 
had to be administered, and Bunyan was con- 
fined to Bedford jail. His confinement there 
lasted in all for a period of twelve years. 



190 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

Looking into the circumstances of his arrest 
and trial, in which, it must be admitted, the law 
was as lenient as it consistently could be, and 
regarded in the light of our own day, Bunyan's 
obstinate devotion to this cause of a free religion 
might here or there seem to take on a semblance 
of fanaticism; but remembering the beliefs and 
happenings of his own day it stands out clearly 
as the courageous determination of a man w^ho 
dared face many a haunting torment of heart 
and mind for the sake of what he believed to be 
right. However different his beliefs from our 
own, we can but be touched by his sincerity, his 
courage, and his suffering. 

For this struggle caused him mental suffer- 
ing of an extreme degree. No one who has found 
it difficult to do that which the spirit knows is 
right, as against that which the heart tells us is 
pleasant, can read the following account of him- 
self which Bunyan wrote in prison without keen 
sympathy and understanding, or, at the very 
least, without being convinced of Bunyan's 
entire integrity of heart and mind. 

Yet I was a man compassed with infirmities. The part- 
ing with my wife and poor children hath often been to me 
in this place [the prison in which he was writing] as the 
pulling of my flesh from my bones; and that not only 
because I am too, too fond of those great mercies, but also 



PILGRIM'S PROGRESS 191 

because I should have often brought to my mmd the hard- 
ships, miseries, and wants my poor family was like to meet 
with, should I be taken from them, especially my poor 
blind child, who lay nearer my heart than all I had besides. 
[It lends meaning to his words when we remember that his 
beloved blind child did indeed die while he was in prison.] 
Poor child, thought I, what sorrow art thou like to have 
for thy portion in this world ! Thou must be beaten, suffer 
hunger, cold, nakedness, and a thousand calamities, though 
I cannot now endure the wind should blow on thee. But 
yet, thought I, I must venture all with God, though it 
goeth to the quick to leave you. I was as a man who was 
pulling down his house upon the head of his wife and chil- 
dren. Yet, thought I, I must do it — I must do it. 

Added to all those tugs at his heart was the 
fear of death and that fear, too, of eternal tor- 
ment not uncommon to the sincerest minds of 
his day. 

Also, I had dread of the torments of hell, which I was 
sure they must partake of that for fear of the cross do 
shrink from their profession. I had this much upon my 
spirit, that my imprisonment might end in the gallows for 
aught I could tell. In the condition I now was in I was 
not fit to die, ... I feared I might show a weak heart, 
and give occasion to the enemy. This lay with great trou- 
ble on me, for methought I was ashamed to die with a pale 
face and tottering knees for such a cause as this. The 
things of God were kept out of my sight. The tempter fol- 
lowed me with, "But whither must you go when you die? 
What will become of you? What evidence have you for 
heaven and glory, and an inheritance among them that are 
sanctified?" Thus was I tossed many weeks. 



192 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

Doubts, you see, of a heavenly reward assailed 
him. For a moment we are perhaps out of sym- 
pathy with him that he should have so great 
concern for the reward of his virtue. Then we 
see him beat down this, too, with those strong 
spiritual hands of his. We see him fling away 
all consideration of his own happiness or unhap- 
piness. It is the right — what he believes to be 
the right — that he will do, and for right's sake. 
Nothing else matters : — 

God might give me comfort or not, as he pleased. I was 
bound, but He was free — yea, it was my duty to stand to 
His word, whether He would ever look upon me or no, or 
save me at the last. [If God chose to reward him, well and 
good, but that had nothing to do with his own duty.] K 
God does not come in, thought I, I will leap off the ladder 
even blindfold into eternity, sink or swim, come Heaven, 
come Hell. 

It has a familiar ring, has it not ! It has the 
sound of other great resolves of other great 
hearts. It is well to read and re-read carefully 
this last passage; for not only does it show us the 
force and courage and earnestness of Bunyan 
himself, but it illumines his great work, the 
"Pilgrim's Progress," and sheds strong light on 
it whereby we may study it and its meanings 
more clearly. 



PILGRIM'S PROGRESS 193 

THE STORY OF THE PILGRIM's PROGRESS 

Longfellow speaks of the "Pilgrim's Progress" 
as a kind of "Divine Comedy " in prose. Though 
there is a certain resemblance between them, yet 
the "Pilgrim's Progress" is, after all, by far the 
more intimate thing of the two. Though Dante 
is himseM the hero, as it were, of the "Divine 
Comedy," he but observes and looks on at the 
suffering and punishments and rewards of his 
fellow-men. He is keenly affected by sympathy 
for them, it is true, but the sufferings and pun- 
ishments and rewards are not his. On the other 
hand, the hero of "Pilgrim's Progress" on his 
journey does not, in the main, so much look on 
at the trials and blessings of others as he tastes 
them for himself. Dante went through hell, pur- 
gatory, paradise, observing; Christian goes expe- 
riencing, battling, failing, stumbling, recovering 
himself, overcoming, rejoicing. 

Dante's keen appreciation of the sins of man, 
his stern sense of justice, — that passion of his 
soul, — were allied with pity, it is true, — we 
read of his swooning at sight of the suffering 
of his fellow-beings, — but the courage and deter- 
mination of Bunyan were mingled with a kind of 
persistent tenderness which pervades this entire 
great book of his. 



194 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

We read what a friend wrote of him, that "in 
countenance he appeared to be of a stern and 
rough temper, but in his conversation mild and 
affable; . . . observing never to boast of himself 
or his parts, but rather to seem low in his own 
eyes, and submit himself to the judgment of 
others; not seeming to revenge injuries; loving 
to reconcile difference and make friendships 
with all." 

That he had been in hell even as Dante had, 
a Puritan hell not so vastly different, after all, 
from the mediseval one, is clear from his own 
writings : — 

My sins [he says] did so offend the Lord that even in 
my childhood He did scare and affright me with fearful 
dreams, and did terrify me with dreadful visions. I have 
been in my bed greatly afflicted while asleep, with appre- 
hensions of devils and wicked spirits, who still, as I then 
thought, laboured to draw me away with them, of which 
I coidd never be rid. I was afflicted with thoughts of the 
Day of Judgment night and day, trembling at thoughts 
of the fearful torments of hell fire. 

But such personally tormenting beliefs as 
these, if they do not utterly wreck the mind, can 
but leave one a gentler judgment of others, and 
teach one a certain pity and tenderness for all 
who with like sensitiveness or morbidness pass 
through the like torments of an inflamed imag- 
ination. Macaulay, writing of the *' Pilgrim's 



PILGREM'S PROGRESS 195 

Progress," points out that "the feeling which 
predominates through the whole book is a feel- 
ing of tenderness for weak, timid, and harassed 
minds." 

The story of the "Pilgrim's Progress" is that 
of a man. Christian, on his way from the City of 
Destruction to the Celestial City, or, it may be 
said in less symbolic language, the change of a 
man's heart and life from sin to righteousness. 
The entire story is in the form of allegory. It is 
well to remember that for several centuries this 
form was the vivid and popular form in which 
religious and spiritual truths were most often 
clothed; especially it was in this form that relig- 
ious and spiritual truths were most frequently 
taught when they were presented to the people 
by means of any of the arts. Bunyan's personi- 
fication of virtues and vices was no new device. 
It had been used repeatedly, customarily by the 
churches in their religious dramas or morality 
and miracle plays, some of these dating as many 
as five or six hundred years before Bunyan. 
Bunyan used an old form, but he used it in 
his own inimitable manner. When we compare 
even what might be considered the best and 
most living of the morality plays, "Everyman," 
with its personified virtues, living characters 
of Strength, Discretion, Beauty, Knowledge, 



196 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

and so forth, we find it cold, indeed, along- 
side of the lifelike reality of "Pilgrim's Pro- 
gress," where the characters are real people 
having certain qualities, not certain qualities 
masquerading as real people. Even Spenser with 
all his poetical genius never lent to his famous 
allegory any of that reality which renders Bun- 
yan's personified vices and virtues so haunting 
and memorable. Spenser's "House of Pride" 
is not a place whose halls and stairways and 
upper chambers are familiar to our feet as are 
those of the "House Beautiful." Nor in all the 
varied landscape of the "Faerie Queene" shall 
you come on so fair and memorable a valley as 
Bunyan's "Valley of Humiliation," low and 
green and sweet, with its gentle flocks of lambs 
feeding; nor so worldly a place — drawn to the 
very life, so that we hear even the very busy hub- 
bub of its streets — as the town of "Vanity." And 
the "Blatant Beast" and the "deadly sins" — is 
any one of them as real to us as Bunyan's Apol- 
lyon, "straddling" the path before poor Chris- 
tian, and crying out, exulting, "Here will I spill 
thy soul"? 

Bunyan had the poetic vision; he possessed 
the poetic and picturesque habit of mind which 
clothed realities in symbols ; moreover, living 
in a time when spiritual and religious questions 



PILGRIM'S PROGRESS 197 

were uppermost in the minds of all deeply ear- 
nest men, he had an extraordinary sensitiveness 
to the moral and spiritual duty and destiny of 
man; but more than these, he had that great, 
that notable sincerity which, added to these 
other qualities, had made his life one of keen tor- 
ment, much suffering, extraordinary effort, and 
spiritual triumph. The * ' Pilgrim's Progress " was 
written not to please queens and courtiers, — 
as was the more fanciful "Faerie Queene," — it 
was written out of Bunyan's experience and 
knowledge with much the same purpose, no 
doubt, which Dante declared actuated the writ- 
ing of the "Divine Comedy": "to remove those 
living in this life from a state of misery, and to 
guide them to a state of happiness." 

And to do this Bunyan told of his own experi- 
ence, wrote out of his own struggles and tears; 
recounted his own state of misery, his doubts 
and fears, and his own hard-won triumphs and 
peace at last. Christian, his hero, whose first 
adventure on his journey is that of the Slough of 
Despond and whose last recounted experience is 
that of entrance into the joy of his Lord, is as 
sincere as Bunyan, because he is Bunyan; he is 
as real as any one of us, because he is no figment 
of the brain, no thing imagined, but a piece and 
parcel of human life and the soul's experience. 



198 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

And the story, briefly, is as follows : — 
There was once upon a time a man named 
Christian who was oppressed by the burden of his 
sins which hung like a bundle on his back. One 
day he read in "the Book" (the Bible, the one 
book that Bunyan knew well) of the necessity 
for salvation, or, to put it in terms nearer our 
own times, the need of righteousness. Then he 
became oppressed as he thought of his own un- 
righteousness and (to return to the old wording 
again) he longed to know what he must do to be 
saved. His wife and family and neighbors tried 
to dissuade him from such thoughts; denouncing, 
scolding, and ridiculing him; believing some 
"frenzied distemper has got into his head." But 
he was not to be dissuaded. 

They also thought to drive away his distemper by 
harsh and surly carriages to him; sometimes they would 
deride, sometimes they would chide, and sometimes they 
would quite neglect him: [Remembering all the inward 
gentleness of Bunyan himself the next lines bring us close 
to him.] wherefore he began to retire himself to his cham- 
ber, to pray for and pity them. 

One day, while he was walking in the fields, a 
man named Evangelist asked him the cause of 
his trouble, and, when Christian told him, he 
urged him to flee from the City of Destruction, 
and showed him what he must do to attain to 



PILGRIM'S PROGRESS 199 

the Celestial City. He pointed him across a wide 
field to a little wicket gate. At this, Christian 
was told, he must enter, and from there on he 
would be directed to the way he should go. 

Then Christian ran toward the place pointed 
out to him. "But his wife and children, perceiv- 
ing it, began to cry after him to return." But he 
put his fingers in his ears that he might not hear 
their entreaties and ran on. (There comes to 
mind involuntarily Bunyan's own account in 
prison how his love for his wife and children, 
"especially my poor blind child," "those great 
mercies" of which he was all "too, too fond," 
called to him and would have deterred him from 
his resolve.) 

Also Christian's friends and neighbors, be- 
lieving him mad, would have detained him. 
And, indeed. Obstinate and Pliable, friends of 
his, followed after, resolved to bring him back 
by force. But being unable to persuade him, 
Obstinate turned back, and Pliable and Chris- 
tian continued across the field toward the wicket 
gate together. 

But on the way thither they both fell into a 
boggy place called the Slough of Despond. This 
was enough for Pliable; scrambling out of the 
slough "on the side which was nearest to his 
house," he returned home. 



200 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

Christian, however, struggled on, and went 
upon his journey, yet feeling all the while the 
great weight of the bundle of sins upon his back. 

Later he fell in with one named Worldly- 
Wiseman, who advised Christian not to take 
that course pointed out to him by Evangelist, 
but to turn aside, rather, in a path that would 
lead him to the town of Morality, where dwelt 
an old gentleman named Legality. This same 
Legality, or his young son Civility, would there 
rid Christian of his burden. 

But as legality (or the law), whatever its 
decisions, cannot wipe away sin, nor civility do 
away with it, so Christian learned that the road 
Worldly- Wiseman pointed out could never lead 
him to righteousness. Then Evangelist came 
once more to Christian's rescue, and, rebuking 
him for having turned aside from the path, set 
him again in the right road. 

So Christian came at last to the wicket gate, 
and entered a straight and narrow way. 

Somewhat farther along he came to the 
"House of the Interpreter." Here he was wel- 
comed by the master of the house, and was shown 
many things of interest, which, being interpreted, 
would help him to that wisdom necessary to his 
journey. 

In this place the story reads not unlike Dante's 



PILGRIM'S PROGRESS 201 

"Inferno," for here, even as Virgil showed 
Dante the souls of those who had sinned, so the 
Interpreter showed Christian those who, telhng 
of their own sin, warned and instructed him and 
roused him to pity. 

Leaving the Interpreter, Christian came at 
last by a narrow path to the foot of a cross, and 
as he came to it the heavy burden of his sins fell 
from him. 

And behold three Shining Ones came to him and saluted 
him with " Peace be to thee " ; so the first said to him, " Thy 
sins be forgiven"; the second stript him of his rags and 
clothed him with Change of Raiment. The third also set 
a mark in his forehead, and gave him a roll with a seal 
upon it, which he bid him look on as he ran, and that he 
should give it in at the Celestial Gate. So they went their 
way. Then Christian gave three leaps for joy, and went on 
singing. 

From here on Christian met many fellow- 
travelers. There is not room here to tell of them 
all: Sloth, Presumption, Hypocrisy, Mistrust, 
and others. 

THE HILL OF DIFFICULTY AND THE CHAMBER OP 
PEACE 

He had not gone far on his way, ere there rose 
before him a great hill called the Hill of DiflS- 
culty. Midway up the ascent was an arbor, 
meant only for a place of rest and refreshment 



202 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

for pilgrims; but here Christian, heedless, slept 
some precious hours away. Here, too, he lost 
some time because, forgetting his roll, he was 
obliged to return to the arbor for it. 

Beyond this he came finally, after the sun had 
set, to a stately palace called Beautiful, a resting- 
place built by the Lord of the Hill for the safety 
and entertainment of pilgrims. This is, perhaps, 
the happiest part of the "Pilgrim's Progress," 
where in the stately palace Christian is hospit- 
ably entertained by four beautiful damsels: 
Discretion, Prudence, Piety, and Charity. Here 
he sat him down to supper with them and they 
discoursed of the Lord of the Hill and of his 
loving kindness. After that Christian was con- 
ducted for the night to a large upper chamber 
whose windows opened toward the sunrising, 
and the name of this chamber was Peace. 

Now before the four damsels allowed him to go 
farther on his journey, they clothed Christian in 
armor from head to foot and placed a sword in 
his hand, for they knew that between them and 
the Delectable Mountain which lay outside the 
Celestial City stretched such places as should 
try hard the courage of Christian. 

Then the four accompanied him to the foot of 
the Hill of Difficulty and there bade him God- 
speed and good-bye and gave him a loaf of bread. 



PILGRIM'S PROGRESS 203 

a bottle of wine, and a cluster of raisins; then he 
went on his way. 

Christian was now come by this time to the 
Valley of Humiliation. 

Now, whereas in a later part of the story it is 
shov/n that this Valley of Humiliation is a place 
"rich with grass and covered with flocks"; and 
whereas we are told that some pilgrims find 
pleasure in its low green fields, yet so did not 
Christian. For it was here and in no other place 
that Christian encountered Apollyon, a "foul 
fiend," and here that he fought with him very 
desperately for many hours until his strength 
was well-nigh spent. 

Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth 
of the way and said: " I am void of fear in this matter, pre- 
pare thyself to die; for I swear, by my infernal Den, that 
thou shalt go no farther; here will I spill thy soul." 

So, without doubt Apollyon's victory seemed 
sure. Yet in the end it was Christian who came 
off conqueror. A fearful fight it was ; — 

In this combat [says Bunyan] no man can imagine, 
unless he had seen and heard as I did, what yelling and 
hideous roaring Apollyon made . . . and on the other 
side what sighs and groans burst from Christian's heart. 
I never saw him all the while give so much as one pleasant 
look, till he perceived he had wounded Apollyon with his 
two-edged sword; then indeed he did smile and look up- 
ward; but it was the dreadfullest sight that ever I saw. 



204 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

More than this, at the end of the Valley of 
Humiliation lay another valley, the Valley of 
the Shadow of Death, and Christian must needs 
go through this also. It was a fearful place beset 
with snares and nets and fears and darkness, 
"pits and pitfalls; deep holes and shelvings 
down." Yet Christian, by means of care and a 
weapon called All-Prayer, came safely toward 
the end of the Valley, and there overtook one 
called Faithful; and from here on they traveled 
together, meeting many others by the way, 
notably one Talkative, one of the best drawn and 
most lifelike of all the characters. 

So traveling together Christian and Faithful 
came to a town called Vanity, a place which 
swarmed with people and wherein was held a 
very great fair, kept all the year round. Here, 
though they behaved themselves only as Chris- 
tians, despising or turning from the things of 
Vanity, they were ill-treated by the inhabitants 
of the town. Here they were brought at last for 
judgment before its court, and here Faithful was 
condemned to death. 

After this, saddened, yet accompanied now 
by one Hopeful, Christian traveled on once more. 
Ahead of them lay a grievous adventure in 
Doubting Castle, where Giant Despair beat and 
mistreated them. Yet from this, too, after much 



PILGRIM'S PROGRESS 205 

suffering they escaped and came, in time, to the 
Delectable Mountains, where there were "Gar- 
dens and Orchards and Vineyards and Fountains 
of Water; where also they drank and washed 
themselves, and did freely eat of the Vineyards." 
Here, too, were certain shepherds keeping their 
flocks and whose names were Knowledge, Expe- 
rience, Watchful, and Sincere; and these con- 
ducted Christian and Hopeful and showed them 
many things both of reason and wisdom, and of 
hope and of warning. And from these Delectable 
Mountains, far beyond, the Celestial City could 
be seen. 

THE ENCHANTED GKOUND 

After this the tale comes soon to a close. Other 
difficulties befall the pilgrims, but the end is 
in view. There is one adventure, that of the 
Enchanted Ground, which reminds one strongly 
of the "Lotus-Land" of the " Odyssey": — 

They went till they came into a certain country, whose 
air naturally tended to make one drowsy, if he came a 
stranger into it. And here Hopeful began to be very dull 
and heavy of sleep; wherefore he said unto Christian, I do 
now begin to grow so drowsy that I can scarcely hold up 
mine eyes, let us lie down here and take one nap. 

Christian : By no means, said the other, lest sleeping we 
never awake more. 

Hopeful : Why, my Brother ? Sleep is sweet to the labor- 
ing man; we may be refreshed if we take a nap. 



206 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

Christian : Do you remember that one of the shepherds 
bid us beware of the Enchanted Ground ? He meant by 
that, that we should beware of sleeping; wherefore let us 
not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober. 

From here, having got over the Enchanted 
Ground, the pilgrims entered the Country of 
Beulah " whose air was very sweet and pleasant." 

This, too, hke the Palace Beautiful, is one of 
the places in the pilgrimage where the reader 
lingers as willingly as did the pilgrims. 

Here they heard continually the singing of Birds and 
saw every day the Flowers appear in the earth, and heard 
the voice of the Turtle in the land. In this country the 
Sun shineth night and day; wherefore this was beyond the 
Valley of the Shadow of Death, and also out of the reach 
of Giant Despair, neither could they from this place so 
much as see Doubting Castle. Here they were in sight of the 
City. . . . Here they had no want of Corn and Wine ; . . , 
And drawing near to the City, they had yet a more perfect 
view thereof. It was builded of Pearls and Precious stones, 
also the street thereof was paved with Gold; so that by 
reason of the natural glory of the City, and the reflection 
of the Sunbeams upon it. Christian with desire fell sick. 

After this respite they come at last to what 
is perhaps the darkest difficulty of all, the 
dark river "without a bridge." This, they are 
told, they must cross before they can enter the 
City which lies beyond it. At this the pilgrims, 
and especially Christian, "began to despond in 



PILGRIM'S PROGRESS 207 

their minds." They looked about, hoping for 
escape, but there was none. 

Finally, they entered the water and Christian 
began to sink in the sorrows of death and to 
despair that he should ever see the "land of 
milk and honey. . . . And with that a great dark- 
ness and horror fell upon Christian, so that he 
could not see before him." 

Hopeful had, indeed, much difficulty to com- 
fort Christian, who, though he had with courage 
passed through so many dangers, appeared like 
to be totally overcome by this last one. But 
remembering the promise of the All-Merciful, 
**When thou passest through the Waters, I will 
be with thee," he took courage yet once more. 
Thus they got over the dark waters at last, and 
at the other side were met and were led by Shin- 
ing Ones into the City of God. Here a company 
of the Heavenly Host and of the King's Trump- 
eters met them and led them into the City with 
rejoicing and melodious noises and with ten 
thousand welcomes. "And lo, as they entered 
they were transfigured . . . and all the Bells in 
the City rang for joy." So, with their journey and 
sufferings all gone by, the pilgrims are at last of 
the "company of the Blessed." 

This, told only very briefly, is the story of 
the "Pilgrim's Progress." The book abounds in 



208 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

striking phrases, truths strikingly set, and char- 
acters curiously lifelike. Here are no mere empty 
allegorical figures, but human beings of flesh and 
blood, friends, fellows, those of our own kind, 
sharers in our hopes, touched with our infirmities. 

"All the forms," says Macaulay, "who cross 
or overtake the pilgrims, giants and hobgoblins, 
ill-favored ones and shining ones ... all are 
actually existing beings to us. . . . Bunyan 
is almost the only writer who ever gave to 
the abstract the interest of the concrete. . . . 
The mind of Bunyan . . . was so imaginative 
that personifications, when he dealt with them, 
became men." 

Owing to this lif elikeness of the characters and 
experiences in the book, Froude declares: "The 
'Pilgrim's Progress' is a book which, when once 
read, can never be forgotten. We, too, every one 
of us, are pilgrims, on the same road, and images 
and illustrations come back upon us from so faith- 
ful an itinerary, as we encounter similar trials 
and learn for ourselves the accuracy with which 
Bunyan has described them." 

It is Christian himself who is the most real 
and lifelike of all the characters, a genuine 
human being with the faults and failures and 
mistakes and timorousness, misgivings and re- 
turning courage of our own selves, as we, too. 



PILGRIM'S PROGRESS 209 

journey past doubts, difficulties, joys, tempta- 
tions, weariness of well-doing, meadows of ease 
and refreshment, discouragements and dark 
floods, in the journey of our lives. 

So the very humanness of it all would seem 
to give the "Pilgrim's Progress" sufficient claim 
upon our sympathies and appreciation; but there 
are deeper reasons still, as there always are deep 
reasons for the lasting greatness of great books. 

WHY IS THIS BOOK SO GREAT? 

We have found in studying other great books 
that one main reason for their greatness and 
their continued appeal lies in some one experi- 
ence or motif which each sets out strongly and 
clearly. The experience is one common to 
humanity or comprises one of the ideals of 
humanity which the poet for reasons of his own 
selects and chooses and interprets for us. In the 
"Odyssey" we find this predominant motif or 
ideal to be Patience; in the "Divine Comedy," 
Justice; in Goethe's "Faust," Self -Sacrifice; in 
"Pilgrim's Progress" we find it to be Cour- 
age. 

Perhaps, at first glance, this may seem some- 
what surprising. Ulysses was patient; Dante 
loved justice; Faust attained to self-sacrifice; but 
can this timorous Christian be regarded as an 



210 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

exemplar of courage? But if you look closer, 
perhaps you will see that it is just the timorous- 
ness of Christian, just his blunders and mistakes, 
which seal and establish the more securely his 
courage. It is true the courage underlying the 
** Pilgrim's Progress" is not that brilliant occa- 
sionalcourage of the heroes of romance; it is not 
the striking or exceptional thing; not a colored, 
panoplied display of pomp and circumstance; 
there are no trumpets of victory in honor of 
great and particular heroism, unless one chooses 
so to remember the melodious noises of the 
King's Trumpeters at the very last, which, how- 
ever, greet no glorious victory, but welcome 
rather two very tired and way- weary travelers. 
Here, in this story, we see that daily, persistent, 
humble courage which must attend all those 
who would attain righteousness, and all those 
who would come happily to the end of any diflS- 
cult and serious undertaking. 

There are, of course, occasions here, too, when 
a stronger kind of courage is needed, and at 
such times Christian is able to summon it, as 
when he fights with Apollyon, or when he faces 
the dread darkness of the Valley of Death; but 
in the main the courage is a more patient and less 
triumphant one — such courage as we see daily 
in the living of noble lives, in the meeting of daily 



PILGRIM'S PROGRESS 211 

difficulties or trials, the persistent overcoming 
of daily discouragement or despair or lassitude; 
the bravery above all to go on; the courage of 
renewed effort; the courage of a fixed purpose 
maintained in the face of how many dangers and 
how much difficult circumstance. 

In the beginning of the tale Mr. Worldly- 
Wiseman warns Christian of the hard way: — 

Thou art like to meet with in the way which thou 
goest, wearisomeness, painfulness, hunger^ perils, nakedness, 
swords, lions, dragons, darkness, and, in a word, death and 
what not. 

That is a summing-up, indeed! And Christian 
listens and is afraid. 

Now let us recall Bunyan's account of his 
own experience of his determination taken in 
prison. You remember the timorous beginning, 
the fears and affections that beset and besought 
him; you remember the painfully vivid imagina- 
tion that pointed out the direst possibilities; you 
recall the fear of death; and the tempter urging 
that Bunyan might, for all his pains, attain in 
the end nothing but hell. 

Then past all these you remember the sure 
march of his spirit, the strong resolve, finally 
taken, the courage regained: "God might give 
me comfort or not, as he pleased," he says. "If 
God does not come in, thought I, I will leap off 



212 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

the ladder even blindfold into eternity, sink or 
swim, come Heaven, come Hell." 

COURAGE REGAINED 

The timorous fears at first, yes; but at last 
the lost courage grasped firmly once more, the 
courage to do and be what he conceived it right 
for him to do and be. And in the "Pilgrim's 
Progress" we find Bunyan's hero tried even as 
he himself was tried, fearful just as Bunyan was; 
and we find him courageous, not less. Here is a 
notable instance. 

When Christian comes at last to the very 
entrance to the Valley of the Shadow of Death, 
he meets two men running toward him, fleeing 
from it, and questions them: — 

Christian : Whither are you going? 

Men : They said, Back, back — and we would have you 
do so, too, if either Hfe or peace is prized by you. 

Christian: Why, what's the matter ? said Christian. 

Men : Matter! said they; we were going that way as you 
are going, and went as far as we durst; and indeed we were 
almost past coming back; for had we gone a little farther, 
we had not been here to bring the news to thee. 

Christian : But what have you met with ? said Christian. 

Men : Why, we were almost in the Valley of the Shadow 
of Death; but that by good hap we looked before us, and 
saw the danger before we came to it. 

Christian : But what have you seen ? said Christian. 



PILGRIM'S PROGRESS 21S 

Men : Seen ! Why the Valley itself, which is as dark as 
pitch; we also saw there the Hobgoblins, Satyrs, and 
Dragons of the Pit; we heard also in that Valley a continual 
howling and yelling, as of a people under unutterable 
misery, who there sat bound in afflictions of irons; and over 
that Valley hangs the discouraging clouds of Confusion; 
Death also doth always spread his wings over it. In a word 
it is every whit dreadful, being utterly without order. 

Here is something to shake the heart of the 
stoutest, and the heart of Christian is especially 
sensitive to fear. Moreover, it is not to be for- 
gotten that he was yet sorely spent and wounded 
from his fight with Apollyon. We recall after 
the fearful combat Christian's smile and look 
upward; " the dreadfullest sight that ever I saw," 
says Bunyan. 

Yet Christian's reply when it comes is sure. 
There is nothing glorious about it; no swash- 
buckling, no declarations, no threats, no heroics; 
only, his mind made up, his courage gripped 
close, his resolve once more taken; yes, even in 
the very face of all this. 

I perceive not yet [he replied], by what you have said, 
but that this is my way to the desired haven. . . . 

So they parted, and Christian went on his way, but still 
with his Sword drawn in his hand, for fear lest he should 
be assaulted. 

Now it were well to recall once more Bunyan's 
account of his own fears in prison; his fearful 



214 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

dread of death, and of those torments he con- 
ceived might attack him after death. Note how 
close this "Pilgrim's Progress" (much of which, 
it is thought, he wrote while he was in prison) 
is, not only to our own experiences of fear and 
faint-heartedness and new resolve, but how it is 
drawn true, line for line, to Bunyan's experience. 
It is illuminating to recall how in the face of the 
most haunting fears and dire possibilities Bunyan 
himself went on, without regard to his own wel- 
fare or reward. It is well to read the stalwart 
words again : — 

God might give me comfort or not, as He pleased. 
If God come not in, thought I, I will leap off the ladder 
even blindfold into eternity, sink or swim, come Heaven, 
come Hell. 

Over and over in the "Pilgrim's Progress," 
this humbler yet stalwart kind of courage is 
insisted on, over and over it is set before us, 
until we ourselves, as we read, gain a kind of 
reflected courage, too; and our own strength is 
stirred. He is like ourselves, this Christian, only 
more persistently courageous, braver, in the end 
as brave as we might wish ourselves to be. So 
the book not only gives us, as do all great books, 
a better understanding of life, but stirs us to a 
nobler living. We pluck up heart somewhat; the 
book affects us, helps to mould us; we add some 



PILGRIM'S PROGRESS 215 

of Christian's courage to our own. Like Christian 
after his happy discourse with the four gracious 
damsels — Discretion, Prudence, Piety, Char- 
ity — or his converse with the Shepherds — 
Knowledge, Experience, Watchful, and Sincere, 
there on the Delectable Mountains — we are 
able to take up our journey with a happier heart 
and meet its difficulties with renewed courage. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE BOOK OF JOB 

Of unknown date, . . . and unknown authorship, the language 
impregnated with strange idioms and strange allusions, un-Jewish 
in form, and in fiercest hostility with Judaism, it hovers like a me- 
teor over the old Hebrew literature, in it, but not of it, compelling 
the acknowledgment of itself by its own internal majesty, yet ex- 
erting no influence over the minds of the people, never alluded to, 
and scarcely ever quoted, till at last the light which it had heralded 
rose up full over the world in Christianity. 

Fkoudb. 

If a Book comes from the heart it will contrive to reach other 
hearts. 

Gablylb. 

"There was a man in the land of Uz." That 
is the way this great book starts out. The name 
conveys little to most of us. The land of IJz is 
not to be found on our maps now. It is many 
centuries since it has been known to any one. 
It is generally surmised that the land lay some- 
where in Arabia, but nothing is known of it with 
certainty. All information concerning the writer 
of the book is even more vague. He with the 
very country he wrote of has been swept into 
the great mass of forgotten things. Yet this 
great work, with its simple story-book begin- 
ning, "There was a man in the land of Uz," 
still towers in our literature like a peak above all 



THE BOOK OF JOB 217 

other peaks, for it is generally agreed that there 
is no other book to compare with it in grandeur 
of conception, beauty of treatment, and depth 
of meaning. 

We can be the more sure of its vitality and 
greatness when we remember that it is great, 
despite the fact that many different sects and 
peoples have regarded it almost entirely from a 
religious rather than a human standpoint; when 
we recall that many have not failed to weary 
themselves in quarrels regarding its doctrinal 
meanings; that it has been used for reproof and 
admonition; that it has been made the subject of 
dull sermons by thousands of dry people. 

Mention the Book of Job without reference to 
it as great literature, and in the minds of many of 
us is called up an idea of something dull or dreary 
or gloomy, something really little understood, 
though much preached about. Many of us have 
never read it through, or, if we have, it is not 
unlikely we have read it as a kind of religious 
duty. There are those who still read it a chapter 
only at a time, a daily "chapter from the Bible," 
thus missing, of course, all the continuity, and 
most of the beauty and meaning of the wonderful 
story. In studying it here it is well to regard it 
not from any religious standpoint whatever, but 
rather only as a notable part of world literature. 



218 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

The better to escape the old habits and asso- 
ciations which in many cases still cling to our 
ideas of Bible study, it is to be strongly recom- 
mended that the book be studied from one of the 
many good editions now published in which it is 
bound as a separate volume, treated as a book in 
itself, and not as a part of the Old Testament. 
Moreover, it can hardly be urged too strongly 
that this great book be read in connection with a 
good commentary. 

Read in this way and studied carefully, we 
have no need to fear that the story of the Man of 
Uz will seem dull. It is one of the most fascinat- 
ing stories of all time. Carlyle says of it in a 
chapter of his "Heroes and Hero Worship": "I 
call that, apart from all theories about it," he 
says — and I ask you to note very carefully that 
parenthesis, "apart from all theories about it," 
for I take that to include all the dry-as-dust ser- 
mons that were ever preached about it — "I 
call that," he says, "apart from all theories 
about it, one of the grandest things ever written 
with pen. . . . A noble Book; all men's Book! It 
is our first oldest statement of the never ending 
Problem, — a man's testing, and God's ways 
with him here in this earth. And all in such free, 
flowing outlines; grand in its sincerity, in its sim- 
plicity; in its epic melody and repose of recon- 



THE BOOK OF JOB 219 

cilement. There is the seeing eye, the mildly 
understanding heart. So true every way; true 
eyesight and vision for all things; material things 
no less than spiritual; the Horse, — 'hast thou 
clothed his neck with thunder?^ he laughs at 
the shaking of the spear ! ' " 

Many vivid and poetic descriptions could be 
quoted. Carlyle remembering them goes on to 
say: "Such living likenesses were never since 
drawn." And then he calls attention to the 
spiritual insight as well, the great human inter- 
est, the warm human understanding: "Sublime 
sorrow, sublime reconciliation; oldest choral 
melody as of the heart of mankind; — so soft, 
and great; as the summer midnight, as the world 
with its seas and stars ! There is nothing writ- 
ten, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal 
literary merit." 

We turn again to the story with its simple 
beginning: "There was a man in the land of Uz." 
No book in or out of the Bible of equal literary 
merit! That is saying a good deal. But let us see. 

THE TIMES IN WHICH THE STORY WAS WTjittEN 

When we seek for the time and place in which 
this story was written, we find ourselves on un- 
sure ground. It is supposed, on the evidence of 
the book itself, that the story was written later 



220 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

than the Proverbs of Solomon. By its form we 
know it must have been written at a time when 
the literary art of the Hebrews had advanced 
and developed and ripened; for it is told in no 
haphazard way, it shows great care of construc- 
tion. It is a great work of art. But it is practi- 
cally impossible to assign it with any certainty 
to any fixed period. 

The tale is placed in what was, it is generally 
agreed, a part of Arabia. Its hero is a sheikh of 
great wealth and power. Yet the whole tone and 
spiritual color of the work is distinctly Hebrew. 
Its author, it is believed, was a Hebrew, perhaps 
a Hebrew in exile. In any case it seems certain 
that much of his life was lived away from his own 
people; a traveled man, we think, just as Homer 
was, a man who had seen much of life, who knew 
the tribes of the desert and the cities of the plain, 
who had seen the great tombs and pyramids, who 
had witnessed the pomp and splendor of old 
Egypt; a man, too, who had lived much with 
nature and observed with quick and reverent 
and speculative eye the wonders of the natural 
world. He was a man of broad thought and deep 
sympathies; a man of strong feeling, of independ- 
ent opinion, yet of gentle tolerance, — all these 
things are evident in the book itself. 

The more we study the story of the Man of Uz 



THE BOOK OF JOB 221 

the more is clear the writer's desire to criticize 
earnestly and to condemn certain religious beliefs 
and dogmas current in his day. 

It is important for us to remember that this 
man, like writers of all other great books, is an 
interpreter. This is not merely his opinion; this 
man, like the author of all other great books, is 
the voice of a people. Before he put his own 
doubts of the dogmas of a fixed faith into words, 
other men had doubted; before he found a nar- 
row creed too small to hold what he knew of 
life, others had doubted and gone away unsatis- 
fied and unfed from the altars of the Most High. 

To understand this deep dissatisfaction, we 
must study somewhat the religion and doctrines 
which this book sets itself to oppose. And to do 
this, we must once more, as in studying the 
"Odyssey" and the "Divine Comedy," leave 
behind us the world and its beliefs as they exist 
to-day. The Book of Job was written long before 
the coming of Christ. The religion at which it 
strikes so openly and forcefully is that held and 
practiced some thousands of years ago by the 
Jews. 

While other religions of the East wandered 
vaguely or craftily in mysticism, while that of the 
Greeks allied itself frankly with nature, the old 
Hebrew religion preserved at its center that 



222 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

powerful moral idea of right and wrong, good 
and evil, which made it the most moral and 
spiritual religion of its day. Here was nothing 
vague, here no comfortable Pantheon with many 
and varied gods; here were no whimsical deities 
to deal with, neither Apollo nor Aphrodite nor 
Isis nor Osiris; but One, the All-Mighty, who 
dealt rather with man, portioning out just deserts 
to the good and to the evil. This God was a ruler 
and a judge. We see here a dignified religion 
having at its center the very noble idea of man's 
moral responsibility to one higher power and to 
his neighbors, since that higher power protected 
his neighbor as well as himself. Yet this relig- 
ion, so vastly more spiritual than many another 
of its time, left the hearts of many, and along 
with these the heart of the writer of Job, unsat- 
isfied. It was an old religion even in that day, 
and its ancient simplicity and nobility of ideal 
had, as time passed, become crystallized, had 
become encrusted by an elaborate ritual, and 
could not change along with man's changing 
experience, nor develop with his developing 
intelligence, nor grow with his growing spiritual 
needs. Man, or at least the higher type of man, 
the thinking man, was beginning to outgrow the 
old belief, even while the lesser intelligences still 
** regarded their creed as a sacred total to which 



THE BOOK OF JOB 223 

nothing might be added and from which nothing 
might be taken away." Though we are not told 
so, it is circumstantially evident that the writer 
of the Book of Job, if a Jew (which we believe 
him to have been) , was a dissenter, a nonconform- 
ist of his day. He was looked on, no doubt, by 
the "faithful" as a pariah — as a danger and a 
menace to his own. For had he not questioned 
the old established creed? Had he not set him- 
self against the teachings of the high priests? 
He had dared to think for himself, and like his 
great hero Job, he had, in all probability, deter- 
mined to argue his cause himself before the Most 
High, as we see him arguing it and with what 
eloquence in the Book of Job. 

We know nothing of him personally, beyond 
what the Book of Job itself reveals; but the reve- 
lation is sufficiently definite and clear. It seems 
likely that the writer separated himself not only 
from the narrow creed of his people, but sepa- 
rated himself from their country and society as 
well. Froude and many others suppose him to 
have been an exile. His hero cannot fairly be 
called a Jew. He lives in a land and among cus- 
toms strange to the Jewish people of that day. 
The author mentions no Jewish traditions and 
refers to none of the old Jewish teachings save 
in this way: he makes both the material and 



224 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

spiritual experience of his hero to be things 
directly opposed to and directly disproving the 
old Jewish beliefs. The blow he strikes is a 
strong one and aimed with unmistakable intent 
at the teachings of the established church of his 
day. 

Many suppose that this Job of whom he 
writes was well known in the times of the writer, 
a kind of proverb among the people: "his name, 
like that of a Priam in Greece, the symbol of 
fallen greatness, and his misfortunes the problem 
of philosophers." Job, a great sheikh, a man 
noted for two things, for his goodness and his 
misfortunes; from these two main facts the full 
stream of the story flows : goodness and misfor- 
tunes. A good man, afflicted. This you will note 
is no very new circumstance or theme; most of 
us have observed the circumstance frequently 
enough; and the men of that day had without 
doubt observed it also. To make his point more 
clear, the writer selects not merely a common 
type of good man, sorely tried, but the most un- 
commonly good man — "a perfect man," we are 
told, — and tried as no other has been tried. 
The scene is set for the drama; and the chal- 
lenge, one might almost call it, is thrown down 
by the author at the foot of the religion of his 
day. For that religion, as we have observed. 



THE BOOK OF JOB 225 

taught that God was a just God, dealing out mer- 
cies to them that deserved them and kept his 
commandments, and punishing evil, visiting the 
sins of the fathers on the children even unto the 
third and fourth generation. 

But here is a notable experience of life itself; 
here is a problem to be solved. If God is a just 
God, how then are Job's misfortunes to be 
accounted for? (And again we must keep in 
mind that Job is not a mere imaginary hero, and 
his story an imaginary one; Job is but the em- 
bodied experience of many other good men who, 
despite their goodness, have suffered.) How is 
the old eye-for-an-eye tooth-for-a-tooth religion 
to account satisfactorily for this? What answer 
has it to give, not to the unthinking multitude, 
who accept its teachings without question, but 
to the thinking man who sees and observes and 
preserves his God-given right to question? The 
old Hebrew religion of that day had no adequate 
answer to give. So the writer of this book, him- 
self a thinking man, a man with a magnificent 
mind of his own, sets himself to answer it; not as 
with assumed or divine authority, mind you; 
he has not constituted himself nor been con- 
stituted a high-priest; he merely uses his human 
prerogative to write out of his own human expe- 
rience and the experiences of his fellow -men. 



226 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

He will set down the truth as he has seen it, 
touched it, and suffered for it, no doubt, day by 
day. 

Here was a fact he had noted often, one which 
had puzzled him and troubled him. He had seen 
frequently, and saw the more widely, no doubt, 
as he traveled more and thought more, misery 
and sorrow not infrequently visited on the vir- 
tuous, and saw again and again, even as we see it 
now, the wicked prosper. To his alert mind the 
question must have come pointedly: "Why are 
God's judgments as they are.^^" " Why, viewed 
in the light of a system of just rewards and just 
punishments, are God's dealings with mankind 
opaque .f^ " 

He could not be content to leave so vital a 
question unsolved, could not leave it until he had 
found some more fitting answer to the perplex- 
ing and baffling testimony of life and his own 
experience. 

Gradually, in his own soul, the higher spiritual 
conviction must have developed; gradually the 
nobler spiritual standard must have arisen. If 
man's virtue was based only on the reward man 
was to receive in pay for his virtue, if his avoid- 
ance of evil was based only on his fear of punish- 
ment, then man was, like his creeds, poor in- 
deed in spirituality. Worse still, if this was so. 



THE BOOK OF JOB 227 

God himself was but a mediocre Master, willing 
to be served only for hire and for no better mo- 
tive. 

Experience of life told the writer that none of 
this was true, however much his church might 
teach it to him. His faith in the old creed and 
ritual must have fallen away, probably little by 
little; yet he must have known, too, that, behind 
all possible fallacies of creed, the truth remained 
untouched. So we know he must have set him- 
self to find it. 

That truth once found, he must have longed 
with the generous impulse of a great man to 
share it with others. As he grew older, and saw 
men bound narrowly by a creed that he believed 
false, the longing may have grown in him. Per- 
haps, after many wanderings, "in some hour of 
burning memory and revived experience," he, 
having learned, meantime, the poet's art, se- 
lected from his own life, or perhaps from the 
life of some well-known sheikh of that day, facts 
and incidents, and wove them with poetic skill 
into a great drama, a great story, the story of a 
man who served God without reward. So, his 
own spiritual convictions clear, he began writing 
that simple beginning: "There was a man in the 
land of Uz." 



228 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

THE STORY TOLD BRIEFLY 

There was a man of Uz, named Job; a perfect 
and upright man who feared God and served 
Him; a great man respected and loved. Seven 
sons and three daughters had been given him. 
His sheep numbered seven thousand, his camels 
three thousand; he had five hundred yoke of 
oxen and "a very great household;" **so that 
this man was the greatest of all the men of the 
East." 

Now there was a day when the sons of God 
assembled to present themselves before the 
Lord in heaven, and Satan among them. And 
the Lord, taking pleasure in Job's goodness, 
asked Satan if he had observed Job, that there 
was none like him, a perfect and an upright man. 

But Satan answered that there was little won- 
der Job served God. Did he do so for nought ? 
Had not God hedged him about with mercies.'* 
Let God take from him all these mercies and Job 
would curse God to his face. 

Then the Almighty gave permission that the 
test should be made, stipulating only that Job 
himself be spared. 

So one day there came to Job a messenger 
crying, "The tribes from the desert have fallen 
upon thy oxen and thy asses, and have taken 



THE BOOK OF JOB 229 

them away, slaying also thy servants. I only 
am escaped to tell thee." 

And another came in the same manner to 
report that the fire of heaven had fallen and 
burned up the sheep and the servants who 
tended them. 

And still another came hurrying to report 
that the Chaldeans had fallen upon the camels 
and carried them away, slaying all the servants 
of Job with the sword. 

As this one finished speaking, there came yet 
a fourth messenger, crying out, "Thy sons and 
thy daughters were feasting in their eldest 
brother's house and there came a great wind out 
of the desert and the house fell upon thy chil- 
dren and they are dead." 

Then Job rent his mantle, the customary sign 
of sorrow and submission, and bowed himself 
down and prayed, and worshiped God, saying, 
"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; 
blessed be the name of the Lord." 

When again the sons of God presented them- 
selves in heaven, the Lord once more spoke to Sa- 
tan concerning Job: "Hast thou considered that 
there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and up- 
right man; one who holdeth fast his integrity?" 

Then Satan said : " I have observed that a man 
will give all he hath for his life — for his life is 



230 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

dearer than all his possessions. Put forth thy 
hand and touch Job's body and he will curse thee 
to thy face." 

So God gave permission that the test should 
be made, stipulating only that Job's life be saved. 

Then Job was smitten with a loathsome and 
painful disease. In the midst of all these calami- 
ties, with family, wealth, possessions, and health 
all taken from him, yet Job preserved his integ- 
rity, saying: "Shall we receive good at the hand 
of God and shall we not receive evil?" 

As time passed, news of Job's great affliction 
reaching the ears of his friends, there came three 
from afar off across the desert, who had made an 
appointment together to come and mourn with 
him and comfort him; they were Eliphaz, Bil- 
dad, and Zophar. 

And when they saw him they raised their 
voices and wept and sat down in silence by him. 
There was little for them to say, not only be- 
cause Job's grief was great, but because they 
believed (according to the teachings of their 
religion) that these calamities could not have 
come to Job undeserved; they must have come 
as a punishment for his sins. 

When at last Job complained bitterly of his mis- 
ery, they set themselves to reprove him for his 
wickedness, and urged him to repentance. 



THE BOOK OF JOB 231 

This was but a new blow, for Job, secure in his 
own integrity, knew his friends accused him 
falsely. So they who had meant to be a com- 
fort to him did but bring him the more misery. 
Under this new affliction. Job again longed for 
death and demanded passionately to be shown 
why the Almighty should so have afflicted him. 

Shocked at such a demand, his friends ac- 
cused him of impiety and presumption, Zophar 
pointing out to him significantly what reward 
might be looked for by the ungodly. 

Job had longed for the comfort of his friends, 
but though he had enjoyed it in happier times, 
now when he needed it most it was not at hand; 
the waters of their pity and mercy were dried up. 

As the stream of brooks they pass away. . . . What time 
they wax warm they vanish, when it is hot they are con- 
sumed out of their place; . . . the caravans of Tema looked 
for them, the companies of Sheba waited for them. 

Now in Job's need they cannot be found. 
Overwhelmed with his misery and suffering, he 
turns from these indignantly to God. Again he 
prays for death, he even upbraids God. 

Thou inquirest after my iniquity, thou searchest after 
my sin, and thou knowest that I am not wicked. 

"In what other poem in the world," says 
Froude, "is there pathos deep as this? With 



232 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

experience so stern as his, it was not for Job to 
be calm, and self-possessed, and delicate in his 
words. He speaks not what he knows, but what 
he feels; and without fear the writer allows him 
to throw out his passion all genuine as it rises, 
not overmuch caring how nice ears might be 
offended, but contented to be true to the real 
emotion of a genuine human heart." 

His friends turn on him now in earnest. Eliphaz 
voices the teaching of their religion and the rest 
follow his lead; a teaching lofty in sound but 
degrading in essence, which would rob man of his 
real dignity and the dignity of his relation to God. 

Thy own mouth condemneth thee, and thine own lips 
testify against thee. What is man that he should be clean, 
and he that is bom of a woman that he should be righteous.? 
Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints, yea, the heavens 
are not clean in his sight; how much more abominable and 
filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water. 

Under the unjust accusations of his religion 
and his friends. Job begins now to be more calm; 
he begins now to see more clearly. Before this 
he has contended passionately with his fate. He 
has hoped for sympathy and earthly comfort. 
But his earthly companions and the teachings 
of religion itself have failed him. All of his hopes 
are in ruins around him; yet out of these rises 



THE BOOK OF JOB 233 

a yet better hope. Neither his friends nor his 
religion have justified him. He begins to hope 
now that in the spirit after death he shall see 
God and shall be vindicated. 

Once more he goes over his bold, undoctrinal 
assertions. He has seen the wicked prosper, and 
the good go unrewarded; yet somewhere, some- 
how, God shall redeem him; literally, justify 
him. 

So once more he seems to his pious and ortho- 
dox friends Job the blasphemer. They cannot see 
that his vision is gradually becoming clearer; 
that he is coming close to the truth; that he is 
beginning to understand that man's measure- 
ments cannot measure God, nor man's creeds 
wholly comprehend Him. He is beginning to get 
glimpses of great truths, only glimpses, as yet; 
he is beginning to grasp a larger faith, a nobler 
ideal. He is beginning to see, what Bunyan saw 
clearly so many years later, that though God 
give or withhold reward, man's duty and integ- 
rity must stand fast; that man is bound, but 
God is free; that to serve God and love Him, not 
to measure and judge Him, is man's whole duty. 

Then, once more, flinging back the scorn and 
condemnation and lies of these men who have 
attempted to measure God and himself. Job 
asserts once more his integrity. In the thirty- 



234 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

first chapter he goes over once again his life, and 
his actions and his ideals in the old days, the 
days of his prosperity. It is a glorious chapter of 
self -vindication, not haughty, not self-righteous. 
It is rather the speech of one who remembers 
past joys in the midst of fearful sorrows; who 
longs to believe God just and yearns better to 
understand God's unfathomable dealings. Then 
follows the splendid and daring wish, so char- 
acteristic not alone of Job but of all great hearts 
and great minds, that God Himself — not an 
envoy who may or may not carry God's message 
aright — would draw near, and answer him, and 
reveal to him these things that so sorely puzzle 
and perplex him. 

A DISCREPANCY IN THE STORY 

And just here there comes a discrepancy in 
the story. Job, with magnificent sincerity and 
audacity, calls on God to reveal Himself. And 
in answer to that splendid prayer there appears 
not God, but a fourth "friend" — Elihu — 
who now, on his own account, undertakes to 
reason doctrinally with Job. Following on what 
has gone before, this seems a flaw. The mind of 
the reader is a little bewildered by it. We feel 
there is a discrepancy somewhere. The splendid 
bold strain of the poem seems broken by a lesser 



THE BOOK OF JOB 2S5 

though still lovely music. The sentences of 
Elihu are beautiful, that is, in themselves, but 
their teachings are at variance, apparently, with 
just that splendid and bold truth which the 
writer has set himself to reveal. Commentators 
have puzzled much over the speeches of Elihu; 
but many now believe that these speeches do not 
belong to the original, but were inserted later by 
some writer, some "conformist," perhaps, who 
found this big massive work a little too bold, a 
little too iconoclastic, who saw an opportunity 
to use it as a great religious work, could certain 
undoctrinal things be brought into line. So Elihu, 
speaking after Job's last great speech, and up- 
holding, or at least sustaining, the more ortho- 
dox views, seems to have somewhat defeated 
Job's views and drawn a veil once more over 
the splendid vision. Moreover, his words are at 
variance with the end of the story as it stands. 
Certain it is that the story reads far more 
connectedly, far more grandly, and preserves its 
integrity, as it were, if we omit these chapters 
altogether, beautiful though they are in them- 
selves in imagery and phrase; if we go straight 
from the end of the thirty-first chapter, which 
closes with Job's wish to speak face to face with 
the Almighty, to the direct answer to that wish, 
with which answer the thirty-eighth chapter 



236 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

begins. In it God Himself speaks with Job in 
those glorious, well-known verses, which, while 
the author puts them, in the drama, in the mouth 
of God, are really drawn from his own deep 
experience and his own heart. In substance they 
are this: Shall Job (Job representing man in 
general) presume to measure and judge of the 
Almighty? 

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and 
said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without 
knowledge ? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will 
demand of thee, and answer thou me. 

Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the 
earth ? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid 
the measures thereof, if thou knowest ? or who hath 
stretched the line upon it ? Whereupon are the foundations 
thereof fastened ? or who laid the corner stone thereof; 
when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of 
God shouted for joy? Or who shut up the sea with doors, 
when it brake forth ? — 

And so on through four glorious, unmatched 
chapters. In them God speaks with Job "not as 
the healing spirit in the heart of man; but as Job 
had at first demanded, the outward God, the 
Almighty Creator of the universe, and clad in 
the terrors and the glory of it. Job, in his first 
precipitancy, had desired to reason with Him 
on his government. The poet, in gleaming lines, 
describes for an answer the universe as it then 



THE BOOK OF JOB 237 

was known, the majesty and awfulness of it; 
and then asks whether it is this which he requires 
to have explained to him, or which he believes 
himself capable of conducting." 

At the end of all this. Job is not, you will 
notice, struck down by any sense of sin, though 
he "repents in dust and ashes." He abhors him- 
self not for sin, not for the unorthodox daring of 
his belief, but for the smallness of his belief, the 
smallness of his understanding. A confession of 
his faith in God and of his own fallibility he now 
binds together as the offering of his heart and 
brain. Here is nothing servile. It is not servile 
for a "perfect and upright man," who has 
thought widely and experienced deeply, to admit 
that, wide and deep as he has gone, life and 
infinity, vast, wonderful, are wider, deeper yet. 
Here is no mock humility, no beating of the 
breast, no wailing that he is a sinner. Here is a 
man who has dared speak direct with God, and 
some inner and outer dignity clings to him from 
that. He does not recoil from God, overwhelmed. 
He seems rather to draw nearer to him. Before 
this he has heard of God from others, as we hear 
of one of whom others bring us report; but now 
with his own eyes he sees him. 

Then Job answered the Lord and said, . . . Who is he 
that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I 



238 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

uttered that I understood not, things too wonderful for me 
which I knew not. Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak. 
... I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now 
mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself and repent 
in dust and ashes. 

Then God speaks to the three friends of Job 
and rebukes them. Job, passionate as he had 
been, had not tried to shut up God's everlasting 
truths in little shells of petty human beliefs, nor 
had he accused himself falsely in the hope of 
winning God's favor. He had dared be a man, 
had thought honestly for himself. Above every- 
thing he had clung to his integrity. God warns 
Job's three friends that they have misrepresented 
the Most High. "For ye have not spoken of me 
the thing that is right as my servant Job hath." 
He bids them make amends, "lest I deal with 
you after your folly." And Job prayed for his 
friends, and his prayer was answered. 

And from then Job's sorrows were turned to 
blessing, and even all that he had lost was be- 
stowed on him, and he lived long in the favor of 
God. 

This, briefly told, is the story of Job, the Man of 
Uz. It is first of all intended to criticize and dis- 
approve a narrow, dogmatic religious interpreta- 
tion of God's dealings with men. It stands as the 
first recorded struggle of the hearts and minds 



THE BOOK OF JOB 239 

of many men against a narrow and orthodox 
belief. But while this is very evidently the intel- 
lectual intent of the book, the purpose of it is 
broader yet. It is not merely iconoclastic, but 
constructive. It breaks down a narrow spiritual 
conception, but it builds up a broad and tower- 
ing one, whose foundations are laid deep and 
broad. The high intent of the author seems to 
be to set out a higher spirituality and to justify 
a nobler conception of the divine. When we ex- 
amine the story we find that it is not so much a 
justification of its hero Job (or suffering man- 
kind), struggling against the narrow reproof and 
teachings of his friends (who here typify a defi- 
nite religious belief), as it is a justification of 
God. To the writer it seemed that God had 
been misrepresented, belittled by the minds and 
narrow creeds and beliefs of men. His glory had 
been tarnished, as it were, by man's handling of 
it. So he set himself earnestly to tell us some- 
thing of what he had conceived to be God's 
untarnished majesty. He sets us a standard of 
serving God for nought save for the blessedness 
of serving him. Summing up the philosophy of 
the book, in the words of Froude, the author 
teaches that, "Our place is to be true to the best 
which we know, to seek that and do that; and if 
by Virtue its own reward' be meant that the 



240 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

good man cares only to continue good, desiring 
nothing more, then it is a true and noble saying. 
But if virtue be valued because it is politic, be- 
cause in pursuit of it will be found most enjoy- 
ment and fewest sufferings, then it is not noble 
any more, and it is turning the truth of God into 
a lie. Let us do right, and whether happiness 
come or unhappiness it is no very mighty matter. 
If it come, life will be sweet; if it do not come, 
life will be bitter — bitter, not sweet, and yet to 
be borne. On such a theory alone is the govern- 
ment of this world intelligibly just. The well- 
being of our souls depends only on what we are ; 
and nobleness of character is nothing else but 
steady love of good and steady scorn of evil. 
The government of the world is a problem while 
the desire of selfish enjoyment survives; and 
when justice is not done according to such stand- 
ard (which will not be till the day after dooms- 
day, and not then), self -loving men will still ask, 
Why.? and find no answer. Only to those who 
have the heart to say, 'We can do without that; 
it is not what we ask or desire,' is there no secret. 
Man will have what he deserves, and will find 
what is really best for him, exactly as he honestly 
seeks for it. Happiness may fly away, pleasure 
pall or cease to be obtainable, wealth decay, 
friends fail or prove unkind, and fame turn to 



THE BOOK OF JOB 241 

infamy; but the power to serve God never fails, 
and the love of Him is never rejected." 

All this the writer teaches by means of his 
hero Job. And the theme that rings through 
the whole magnificent story is just this teaching 
brought down to its very essence, namely, faith. 

Job's wife, though in the beginning she knows 
that he has been good, when she sees him so 
sorely afflicted bids him curse God, and die. In 
other words, a God who can treat a good man 
like that (you see she judges God and does not 
trust Him) — why should one serve Him? But 
Job answers her mildly, "Thou speakest as one 
of the foolish women. Shall we receive glad- 
ness at the hand of God and shall we not receive 
affliction.?" 

This is early in the story, you remember. Here, 
as well as in the brave reply, "The Lord hath 
given, the Lord hath taken away," we find the 
theme of faith first given out strongly. 

Then follow all the miseries and sorrows and 
trials and contending voices of doubt and yearn- 
ing and suffering which drown the beautiful but 
as yet insufficient faith. But it comes back 
again; and stronger this time: "Though He slay 
me yet will I trust Him." "I know that my 
Redeemer [literally, my justifier] liveth." 

But still the fierce struggle goes on. Job in his 



242 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

misery longs to die. He leans on the faith his 
friends have had in him — and it breaks. They 
turn against him. Zophar, the most frank of 
them, even goes so far as to say, "God gives 
thee less than thy iniquity deserveth." Afflicted 
beyond measure, all worldly benefits gone, his 
friends lost to him, Job turns again (now with a 
kind of audacity of faith) and wdshes he might 
argue with God Himself. He feels sure of God's 
justice and has firm faith in it. Then comes the 
climax of the story. It is God, not Job, who is 
vindicated. Job, though tossed and torn, has 
clung somehow to his faith. "I know that my 
Redeemer liveth." "Though He slay me, yet 
will I trust Him." This is typical of Job, and 
of the story. It has a familiar ring that allies it 
to other great souls and other great books. It 
recalls Bunyan's resolve in prison. Yet note, 
too, the difference. Bunyan's resolve was one 
founded on a clear vision of duty, and on cour- 
age to follow duty. He would do right, whether 
God stood by him or not — whether He showed 
him favor or not, "come Heaven, come Hell!" 
that is clear resolution and courage. ^ But Job's 
resolve is a higher thing still. 

For not only will he do his duty and preserve 
his integrity, not only has he the courage, as 
Bunyan had, to do this, but he goes further. He 



THE BOOK OF JOB 243 

will love God, no matter how God treats him, for 
he has that higher form of courage which we call 
trust, faith. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust 
Him." 

We are used to the idea that we cannot escape 
from God. Here the author, with splendid dar- 
ing and touching assurance, shows us that God 
cannot escape from us. Let God do what He 
will, we will hold fast to Him. As Jacob with 
the messenger of God, Job has wrestled with the 
afflictions, the sufferings, the doubts visited on 
him, and his cry has been at last that of Jacob 
and of every strong and earnest soul that ever 
fought in mortal frailty with great spiritual 
powers: "I will not let thee go except thou bless 
me!" 

And so at last the blessing comes not by a jus- 
tification of himself, — when it comes it is the 
blessing of greater faith. Job is a changed man. 
The prosperous, virtuous Job of the beginning 
of the story is a different man, indeed, from the 
Job who has suffered and through that suffering 
has conquered his doubts, and has established 
his faith. 

THE STRONG HUMAN APPEAL OF THE BOOK 

And the strong human appeal of the book? It 
is just that — faith. We are wont to hear much of 



244 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

the great patience of Job — as "patient as Job," 
we say; yet one cannot read this great book care- 
fully without realizing that it is rather Job's 
faith that is his towering spiritual quality. It is 
faith that Job obtains, faith that the book de- 
scribes, faith that the book teaches, faith that 
it instills and inspires. For reading of Job's faith 
our own flames a little brighter, the dignity and 
beauty of his trust in God add somewhat to our 
trust. He teaches us to see further than outward 
evidence, shows us how to look beyond not only 
narrow creed and dogma, but beyond the most 
fearful fate that life can bestow on us, — to a 
vision of an All- wise Providence; a vision of 
faith it is — faith which we are told is "the 
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of 
things not seen." 



CHAPTER XII 
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

While it is hoped that the general plan of 
study followed in the foregoing chapters may be 
of use in helping the earnest reader or student 
better to grasp the meanings of the great books 
there dealt with, it is hoped, also, that not the 
letter, but the spirit of it, rather, wdll be adopted. 
For were the plan here suggested carried out too 
literally, it is not unlikely that the over-earnest 
student, while seeking in a great book for re- 
peated evidence of any particular message it 
may bear, might lose much of the grander and 
larger beauty of the work. 

Those who seek to find ore in a mountain will 
need, no doubt, to bore into certain sections of it 
and to examine closely certain parts of its soil, 
to determine where and of what quality the ore 
may be. But by those who hope to realize the 
distinctive beauty and outline and majesty of 
the mountain, a more distant and comprehen- 
sive view must be had. The student who delves 
too persistently in a great book for hidden or 
suspected meanings may find precious ore, but 



246 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

also he will lose much of the inspiration to be 
had from a more general study and comprehen- 
sive view of his subject. 

In "Faust" Goethe has made the character of 
Wagner, Faust's "famulus," — that is his assist- 
ant or servitor in his laboratory, — to represent 
that literal type of student, that exact letter-of- 
the-law person, who, in too exact and literal 
study, loses the grander meanings of life. Goethe 
has contrasted this character strongly with that 
of Faust. Faust by means of his magic has sum- 
moned the Earth-Spirit, and, well-nigh over- 
whelmed by the magnificent and awful presence, 
addresses it. Wagner, meantime, having heard 
the sound of Faust's voice, comes in dressing- 
gown and nightcap, candle in hand, and knocks 
at Faust's study door. The magnificent inter- 
view is interrupted. Faust, hearing the knock, 
turns impatiently: 

death! — I know it — 't is my famulus — 

That all these visionary shapes 

A soulless groveller should banish thus ! 

One needs not be told that the glorious Earth- 
Spirit vanishes. Wagner enters. He had heard, 
he says, some declamation. He thought Faust 
might be reading a Greek tragedy. He himself 
craves some preparation in the art of oratory, 



SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 247 

etc. He is always following Faust about, hop- 
ing to add to his hoarded store of dry knowledge 
some that he believes may be gained from the 
great man. 

Also in the Easter morning scene where Faust 
and Wagner walk abroad together, the contrast 
of the two natures is finely shown. Faust is 
touched, inspired by the glory of the spring, and 
touched, too, by the pleasure of the Easter 
merrymakers. Here is one of the finest passages 
in the book, quoted here only in part: — 

Released from ice are brook and river 

By the quickening glance of the gracious Spring; 

The colors of hope to the valley cling, 

And weak old Winter himself must shiver. 

Withdrawn to the mountains, a crownless king: 

Whence, ever retreating, he sends again 

Impotent showers of sleet that darkle 

In belts across the green o' the plain. 

But the sun will permit no white to sparkle; 

Everywhere form in development moveth; 

He will brighten the world with tints he loveth. 

And, lacking blossoms, blue, yellow, and red. 

He takes these gaudy people instead. 

Turn thee about, and from this height 

Back on the town direct thy sight. 

Out of the hollow, gloomy gate. 

The motley throngs come forth elate: 

Each will the joy of the sunshine hoard. 

To honor the Day of the Risen Lord! 



248 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

There follows a further description of the 
motley throngs. Faust takes pleasure in the 
very colors of their clothes, yet sees the entire 
scene from a height and grasps its greater mean- 
ing. 

Meanwhile we hear the voice of Wagner, — 
Wagner bent on erudition, bent on getting from 
association with this great Faust some credit for 
learning; Wagner, who likes to dissect and pull 
apart to find their meanings Faust's least re- 
marks. 

To stroll with you, Sir Doctor, flatters; 
'T is honor, profit unto me. 

The merrymakers make much of Faust, 
honor and revere him. Their reverence Faust 
takes with simple friendly gratitude. Wagner 
remarks how pleasant it must be to be so hon- 
ored. They stroll on farther and higher up the 
ascent. Faust longs not for that which flatters or 
honors himself. He longs rather for power to see 
things not in mere detail; he wants to see them 
whole. He longs for a broader understanding. 
While Wagner's desire for knowledge stays close 
to the earth, Faust's longings for broader knowl- 
edge and wisdom soar. Had he but wings to lift 
him from the soil, that he might follow on the 
very track of the departing day itself ! This he 
cannot do, but he pictures what it might be had 



SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 249 

he the power. In imagination he sees the whole 
world spread out before him : — 

Then would I see eternal Evening gild 

The silent world beneath me glowing. 

On fire each mountain-peak, with peace each valley filled. 

The silver brook to golden rivers flowing; 

The mountain-chain, with all its gorges deep. 

Would then no more impede my godlike motion; 

And now before mine eyes expands the ocean 

With all its bays, in shining sleep ! 

Yet, finally, the weary god is sinking; 

The new-born impulse fires my mind, — 

I hasten on, his beams eternal drinking, 

The Day before me and the Night behind. 

Above me heaven unfurled, the floor of waves beneath 

me, — 
A glorious dream ! though now the glories fade, 
Alas ! the wings that lift the mind no aid 
Of wings to lift the body can bequeath me. 
Yet in each soul is born the pleasure 
Of yearning onward, upward and away. 
When o'er our heads, lost in the vaulted azure 
The lark sends down his flickering lay, — 
When over crags and piny highlands 
The poising eagle slowly soars. 
And over plains and lakes and islands 
The crane sails by to other shores. 

The two characters of Faust and Wagner 
might be used as parables, almost, to illustrate 
the value of a broad-minded and more general 
study of great books as contrasted with a nar- 



250 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

row and too detailed, limited, and over-zealous 
dissection of them. 

It is without doubt most important that we 
should bring to the study of great works some 
of that wider vision, that sense of completeness, 
that aspiration after broader knowledge which 
characterize Faust. It is of more value, for in- 
stance, for us to realize the amazing scope of 
*'Don Quixote," the big scale of it, until the 
story seems more like a vast country than a 
book, than for us to wander here and there nar- 
rowly in it, seeking for detailed evidence which 
shall enable us to determine just what truth 
Cervantes meant to convey by the madness of 
his mad hero. It is very much more important 
for us to have got some glimpse of the wide 
expanse of the "Odyssey," for us to have heard 
the "surge and thunder" of it "like ocean on a 
western beach," than for us to be able to point 
out that the stories of Penelope and Ulysses are 
well matched in theme. 

Keats's sonnet on Chapman's translation of 
Homer pictures for us admirably that exploring 
and reverent attitude of mind, that large and 
comprehensive vision, that wonder and surprise 
of the intellect and the soul which we should 
bring to the discovery and reading of all great 
books. Keats had known many books, he tells 



SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 251 

us; had traveled much "in the realms of gold," 
as he puts it. He had seen many goodly states 
and kingdoms of the poets. He had oft been told, 
too, of that wide demesne ruled over by Homer; 
but until the volumes of Chapman came to his 
hands never had he breathed the pure serene air 
of that realm. But then, — then — 

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
When a new planet swims into his ken; 
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes 
He stared at the Pacific — and all his men 
Looked at each other with a wild surmise — ^ 
Silent, upon a peak in Darien. 

It is this larger, more comprehensive view 
from high up that I would urge as the^r^i^ vision, 
for all students; to get the vast sweep of the 
"Pacific" as from a height j^r^^, however much 
one may later explore the lesser bays and shal- 
lows; or refresh one's self in its changing tides. 

The writer would urge again that the fore- 
going essays are intended to be merely sugges- 
tions and in no sense dogmatic. Countless able 
commentators have studied these seven books 
long and ably, and by no such method. In Bay- 
ard Taylor's introduction and notes to his mag- 
nificent translation of "Faust," and in Long- 
fellow's copious notes and comments on the 
"Divine Comedy," you will find, for instance, no 



252 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

hint of such interpretations as are mentioned 
in this volume. Able students of Homer might 
insist that while patience and endurance are 
strongly drawn in the "Odyssey," so also are 
other great human traits; that, while justice 
might seem to be especially dwelt on in the 
"Divine Comedy," love and pity are there set 
out with almost equal insistence. 

All this is quite true; but the objection is 
answered, perhaps, by the assertion that the 
writer has no desire to foist on any one the pres- 
ent plan of study. It is set out merely as sug- 
gestive and with the hope that it may perhaps 
render somewhat more clear to the minds of 
many some of the inexhaustible beauty and 
meaning contained in all great books. 



CHAPTER XIII 
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 

Life cannot rightly be understood by any of 
us without the help of those older or wiser than 
ourselves, who, before we came to its problems, 
have already studied it deeply and given it their 
earnest thought. In much the same way the 
great books of the world cannot be rightly under- 
stood nor their full meaning grasped by us readily 
or easily. There will be needed the comment and 
wisdom of those who are wiser than ourselves in 
these matters. 

Let us assume that those who have in the fore- 
going pages read the brief resumes of the seven 
great books now turn to any one of the books 
themselves. 

It is not unlikely the average reader will find 
himself bewildered by the task in front of him. He 
finds these books difficult to read. He is balked 
in the beginning by dark references he does not 
understand; classic or covert allusions of which 
he is ignorant; symbols he cannot interpret. 
Thus, though he starts out hopefully, he is not 
unlikely soon to find himself in a kind of intellec- 



254 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

tual Slough of Despond. Let him console himself, 
however, with this fact which all earnest stu- 
dents of great books readily admit: great books 
are never easy reading. Indeed, great books are 
like great people — the shallow and insincere 
rarely succeed in making friends with them. They 
are never popular in the superficial sense, the 
nobility and meanings and purposes of them 
cannot be discovered quickly. It is only in 
renewed acquaintance with them that we shall 
come to understand them. 

As Dante himself needed Virgil, one wiser 
than himself as guide, to interpret for him the 
meanings and happenings of his famous journey, 
so we shall need some one more familiar with 
these books than ourselves to conduct us through 
the often difficult paths of them. It is, therefore, 
very strongly to be advised that the student 
should not attempt any study of any great books 
unaccompanied by a good commentary. 

As the needs of each student are so individual, 
it is impossible to recommend for each book any 
one commentator who would be an adequate 
guide to all readers. In any case, however, it 
would be well to use an edition of the book 
studied which has good and ample notes. 

If the book is read in translation, — let us 
suppose we are going to study the "Odyssey," 



SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 255 

the "Divine Comedy," and "Faust," all trans- 
lated from the originals into English, — it is 
wise and helpful to use if possible several transla- 
tions, comparing them here and there. The Gary 
translation of Dante, which is an exceedingly 
good and popular one, doubles in interest if one 
has at hand the able Longfellow translation and 
in noted passages can compare the two. Also the 
far more ample notes of the Longfellow trans- 
lation are invaluable to supplement the Gary 
notes. A still better result and pleasure can be 
had if along with the two translations men- 
tioned one has for quick reference the extraor- 
dinarily valuable "Readings from Dante," by 
William Warren Vernon. A few months spent 
exploring the "Divine Gomedy" with these 
three capable and sympathetic guides could not 
but be richly fruitful in pleasure and benefit. 

After exploring with such able commentators 
this great forest-like work of Dante, there will 
come, no doubt, the wish to go into it alone; its 
trees will seem to beckon and its paths to invite. 
For once the commentators have served their 
purpose; once we have "through some heavenly 
hospitality" got presented to the "poets in 
their singing robes," then begins our own friend- 
ship with them, our own personal relation to 
them. But it should not be forgotten that it is 



^56 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

a relation that cannot be forced. If we are to be 
friends of the great, we may not hope to presume 
to a cheap intimacy with them, for that the in- 
nate dignity and reserve of them forbid us. 

Before we can know these great ones inti- 
mately we must know something of their lives, 
their times, their friends, their ideals. No one 
can appreciate even in a small measure Dante's 
love of Florence, nor that bitterness which sat in 
his soul, exiled from her, who does not know 
something of that fair city as she existed in his 
day; no one can appreciate even slightly Dante's 
loneliness who knows nothing of his friends, his 
associations, and the habits of his life. No one 
can judge of the deep sufferings, the earnest 
resolves, and high exaltations, which led him 
through his own more personal hell and purga- 
tory and heaven, who knows nothing of the great 
earthly and spiritual love which led him. You 
may read the "Divine Comedy" from end to 
end, but you will hardly have come into its deeper 
meanings until you have met in history or bio- 
graphy or autobiography, — wherever you are 
able to find it — his deep love for one Beatrice 
Portinari in whose honor the great poem was 
avowedly written. More and more, as Dante be- 
comes in this way a real person to us, more and 
more we shall enter into an understanding of his 



SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 257 

"Divine Comedy" into which he put so much 
of his real self. 

Let us remember these great men, not as dis- 
tant or strange, not as removed from our own 
times, but, rather, as those who by the immortal 
power of their genius are yet present with us, who 
stand beside us here and now, closer, more real 
sometimes, than those who in our tricked phrases 
we call living. These great souls are living still, 
in the broadest and best sense of the word; and 
will be here long after we and our earthly asso- 
ciates are gone. For they are remaining and 
abiding presences in life, revealing themselves to 
all who greatly desire to know them; untouched, 
unaltered by all that changes or decays; for they 

are 

gathered to the Kings of Thought 
Who waged contention with their time's decay, 
And of the past are all that cannot pass away. 

Whatever books, then, will lead us to a better 
knowledge of Dante the man, for instance, will 
be valuable reading to those who wish to take up 
the study of the "Divine Comedy." Such books 
as "Dante Alighieri," by Paget Toynbee, and 
"Companion to Dante," by Scartazzini, are 
exceedingly valuable as aids to this more inti- 
mate knowledge of the man. Dante's own works, 
notably the "Vita Nuova" and the "Convito," 



258 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

are obviously of inestimable value. Boccaccio's 
"Life of Dante," while not reckoned one of the 
most exact, has the great advantage of being 
written by one who lived near to Dante's own 
time. 

All study of history relating to the times of 
the author may be said to be helpful so long as 
one's conception of history is a broad and not 
a limited one. While it were well to read the 
history of Dante's times to get better light on 
Dante, and to make him more living and real to 
us, it must not be forgotten that an equal bene- 
fit accrues from reading Dante to get a better 
light on the history of his age. For it is well to 
keep in mind that the poets are forever the best 
historians. They set before us vividly for all 
time certain periods of man's life and develop- 
ment. The "Divine Comedy" may be called 
history almost, in that it shows us so clearly man 
and his beliefs and surroundings and actions 
as they existed, combined and interrelated at a 
certain period. 

Froude in his essay on the "Science of His- 
tory" makes the same point as to Homer. Of 
him he says, "He sang the tale of Troy, he 
touched his lyre, he drained the golden beaker 
in the halls of men like those on whom he was 
conferring immortality. And thus, . . . through 



SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 259 

Homer's power of representing men and women, 
those old Greeks will still stand out from amidst 
the darkness of the ancient world with a sharp- 
ness of outline which belongs to no period of 
history except the most recent. For the mere 
hard purposes of history, the * Iliad' and the 
'Odyssey' are the most effective books which 
were ever written. We see the hall of Menelaus, 
we see the garden of Alcinous, we see Nausicaa 
among her maidens on the shore, we see the 
mellow monarch sitting with ivory scepter in 
the market-place dealing out genial justice. Or, 
again, when the wild mood is on, we can hear the 
crash of the spears, the rattle of the armor as the 
heroes fall, and the plunging of the horses among 
the slain. Could we enter the palace of an old 
Ionian lord, we know what we should see there; 
we know the words in which he would address 
us. We could meet Hector as a friend. If we 
could choose a companion to spend an evening 
with over a fireside, it would be the man of 
many counsels, the husband of Penelope." 

To study the great masters, then, with a large 
mind, as a part of those ages they interpreted, 
and to study those ages as an essential part of 
themselves, is the only adequate way of coming 
to know them well, and of coming to understand 
their message clearly. To read a great book. 



260 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

then, even with a good commentary, is but to 
have made a beginning; is but to have entered 
an outer chamber of those vast treasure houses 
in which He stored our inexhaustible inheritance. 



CHAPTER XIV 
THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GREAT BOOKS 

There are few things more fruitful to the alert 
mind than a comparative study of great books. 
Even the more casual reader can hardly read 
several of the classics without becoming aware of 
certain marked likenesses which they bear to 
each other. Readers and students of all ages 
seem to have been aware of these likenesses. 
We find Leigh Hunt referring to the "Divine 
Comedy" as the Italian "Pilgrim's Progress"; 
Longfellow speaks of the "Pilgrim's Progress" 
as the English "Divine Comedy." Both are 
agreed evidently on a strong likeness between 
these two books. Likewise we find Goethe's 
"Faust" spoken of as the German "Divine 
Comedy"; and it is also not infrequently re- 
ferred to as the modern Book of Job, alluding, 
of course, to the fact that Faust, like Job, was 
tested and tried for the final losing or saving of 
his soul. 

These are likenesses obvious enough, clear to 
the most casual observer. But when one comes 
to be more deeply interested in a comparison 



262 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

of great books, when one begins really to seek 
out their likenesses, one is often amazed at the 
number and variety and the clearness of these 
likenesses. Not only will a careful noting of 
them add greatly to the interest of our study, 
but very materially to our understanding of 
great books. 

Taking only the seven we have selected, 
namely, the "Odyssey," the "Divine Comedy," 
"Faust," the "Arabian Nights," "Don Quix- 
ote," the "Pilgrim's Progress," and the Book of 
Job, we find that all of them are constructed on 
the same ground-plan, as it were. Each sets out 
the history of a soul which progresses from lesser 
to greater, from worse to better, from unhap- 
piness to happiness. Or to particularize: The 
"Odyssey" sets out the history of a man who 
progresses by means of endurance from separa- 
tion and exile to reunion and homecoming; the 
"Divine Comedy" tells of a man who progresses 
from sin and wretchedness ("hell") to goodness 
and bliss ("heaven"); "Faust," of a man who 
progresses by way of self-sacrifice from a kind of 
damning discontent to happiness and salvation; 
the "Arabian Nights" of a woman who pro- 
gresses by way of ingenuity from a dire doom to 
happiness and honor; "Don Quixote," of one 
who by way of sometimes sorrowful, generally 



COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GREAT BOOKS 263 

humorous, mostly pitiful, adventure, progresses 
from madness and delusion to sanity and truth; 
the "Pilgrim's Progress," of one who by sheer 
determined courage progresses from misery and 
the City of Destruction to salvation and the 
company of the Blessed; the Book of Job, of one 
who, by means of trial, or chance, or God (as you 
may choose to believe the story as allegory or 
truth), progresses from a shallow, untried serv- 
ice to God, first to doubt and then through 
doubt to a noble and triumphing faith. 

The great writers and their great books are 
all agreed on this, this common fact of life, that 
man progresses. They have each in their own way 
testified to it, solemnly sworn to it, as it were, 
and lent their hand and seal to it. 

This is neither the time nor place to draw con- 
clusions; it is enough, no doubt, to draw attention 
to these significant facts. Whatever you or I or 
any of the rest of the lesser "very miscellaneous 
and dusty company" may think, the great ones 
of the earth, the poets "in their singing robes," 
have testified to this, have spoken thus and not 
otherwise. 

Not less interesting, hardly less significant, is 
the fact that in four out of the seven the hero 
makes a journey. Ulysses, Dante, Don Quixote, 
Christian, these all go on journeys. 



264 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

In all of the books, without exception, some 
definite form of superstition is evident. In the 
"Odyssey" we find strange creatures, part 
bird, part woman; curious monsters of sea and 
land; in the "Divine Comedy," vast unhuman 
shapes, too many to mention here; in "Faust," 
Job, and "Pilgrim's Progress," a visible personal 
devil; in the "Arabian Nights," jinns and genii 
and fairies; in "Don Quixote," though the un- 
human forms are not actually present to the eye, 
they haunt nevertheless the fancy of Don Quix- 
ote, — giants, enchanters, evil spirits. 

In the "Odyssey," "Divine Comedy," 
"Faust," "Pilgrim's Progress," and the Book 
of Job alike, is represented the "Land of the 
Dead," varying only in form, not in general or 
essential fact. Ulysses descends to the " Shades." 
Dante enters also the Land of Departed Spir- 
its, but the idea is here gothicized — the Land of 
Spirits is divided into three carefully subdivided 
worlds, and to these are given the names of 
"hell," "purgatory," "heaven." The "Prologue" 
to " Faust" shows us "God in his heaven." In 
the last scene Faust is carried to the "heaven" 
of the redeemed, where Margaret has gone long 
before and awaits him. In the "Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress " Christian attains to the Celestial City and 
sees there the spirits of the blessed; in Job 



COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GREAT BOOKS ^Q5 

God's heaven and his angels, a Personal God, in- 
terested personally in man, are revealed to us at 
the beginning of the story. 

In four out of the seven we see a soul conscious 
of sin or danger, and longing to be saved. In the 
"Divine Comedy," Dante, confronted in the 
woods by the beasts and longing to escape, knows 
not what to do or where to turn — to flee; Faust 
longs to know what to do to save himself from 
wretchedness and escape the disgust of living; 
Sheherazade knows she is doomed if she cannot 
stay the king's displeasure; Christian becomes 
convicted of sin and mourns, begging to know 
what he must do to be saved. 

WTien one looks for less obvious and more 
subtle likenesses, there do not lack examples in 
plenty. Bunyan's description of the Valley of 
the Shadow of Death, for instance, with its fear- 
ful noises and moans, its clanking of chains, its 
complaints of souls in misery, recalls strongly 
Dante's inferno. Dante's journey to the abode 
of the dead recalls certain instances in Ulysses' 
visit to the Land of the Shades. Here the like- 
nesses are often very striking. 

The Interpreter's House in the "Pilgrim's 
Progress," with punishments shown by the 
Interpreter and the lessons taught by the souls 
of those who are there punished, recalls Virgil 



^66 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

interpreting to Dante the meanings of the various 
torments in the inferno, and the lost souls them- 
selves recounting their sins. 

The Court Masquerade in the Second Part of 
" Faust " reminds one vividly of the Great Fair in 
the Town of Vanity in the "Pilgrim's Progress." 

Christian, in the "Pilgrim's Progress," put- 
ting his fingers in his ears so as not to hear when 
his wiie and children cry after him, lest he be 
weakened in his resolves, recalls clearly Ulysses 
dulling his companions' ears and having himself 
bound to the mast with cords lest he yield to the 
voices of the sirens. 

Christian and Faithful, grown drowsy on the 
Enchanted Ground in "Pilgrim's Progress," 
recall Ulysses' experience in the drowsy Land of 
the Lotus-Eaters . 

Don Quixote's mad belief in bewitchments 
and enchantments reminds us in a negative 
way of Faust's use of magic. 

In the "Odyssey" Ulysses' companions fail 
him; in "Pilgrim's Progress," Christian's family 
and neighbors fail and mock him; in the Book of 
Job, Job's three friends turn against him and 
lose faith in him. 

All of the seven books, with the exception of 
the "Arabian Nights," is built around some 
strongly moral idea or view of life. 



COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GREAT BOOKS 267 

In the "Odyssey" and in the Book of Job the 
hero is afflicted by misfortunes which seem arbi- 
trary and unjust. In the "Odyssey" we have 
not only Athena's defense of Ulysses' piety and 
her complaint of the misfortunes visited on her 
hero, but we have Ulysses' nurse lamenting his 
undeserved suffering : — 

My heart is sad for thee, my son; and yet 

I can do nothing. Can it be that Jove 

Hates thee beyond all others? though thyself 

So reverent to the gods? No man on earth 

Has burned so many thighs of fatling beasts 

And chosen hecatombs as thou to Jove 

The Thunderer, with prayer that thou mayst reach 

A calm old age, and rear thy glorious son 

To manhood; yet the god hath cut thee off 

From thy return forever. 

In the Book of Job we have the author's 
assurance early in the story that Job was a 
perfect and upright man, "one that feared God 
and eschewed evil." We have also Job's bitter 
laments, and in the thirty-first chapter his noble 
summing up of his integrity: — 

If I have walked with vanity, or if my foot hath hasted to 

deceit; 
Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know 

mine integrity. 

Yet on this just man, as on Ulysses, have been 
visited sorrow and calamity. 



268 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

There is in each of these poems a persistent 
questioning of the dealings of God, or the gods, 
and a haunting longing, in which the reader 
shares, that the integrity of these men shall be 
admitted by the Higher Powers. The likeness 
is very striking. 

These are only a few of the noticeable simi- 
larities to be found in the books named when 
these books are compared. 

There are a few things, such as man's progress 
and power of overcoming, on which all these 
great authors agree. These, it would seem, they 
take to be great fundamentals. It is as though 
they were all convinced of some indisputable 
truth and said it for us, interpreted it merely 
each in his own fashion. 

On many other things, too, they are, if not all, 
yet nearly all, severally agreed. 

It is as though certain striking facts or char- 
acteristics of life had made strong impressions 
on these men whose delight and chief interest it 
was closely to observe life. 

That the form of a journey, for instance, should 
have been so readily adopted by Homer, Dante, 
Cervantes, Bunyan would seem to point to the 
likelihood that the constant changefulness of 
man's life, its changing adventure, its years that 
depart and decay and alter, its unstable for- 



COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GREAT BOOKS 269 

tunes and inevitable circumstances strongly 
impressed these four writers so that life, when 
they came to write of it, took on the form and 
symbol of a journey, a thing that progresses and 
alters. 

In a like manner the fact that all have made 
their heroes a prey to the powers of superstitions 
and enchantments, stranger creatures and forces 
uncomprehended, would seem to be a common 
confession among these writers that they had 
observed and watched those vast powers of 
nature and of the spirit, so little understood; 
those great forces, outside himself, which myste- 
riously influence, interrupt, hasten, or delay 
man's best or least efforts. When these writers, 
observing man and his life, took note of the 
smallness of man's powers as against the powers 
of nature, observed the limit of his lighted 
knowledge as compared with the vast dark of his 
ignorance, they must have sought aid of imagi- 
nation to picture these things in some of those 
strange forms, half-symbolic, half -believed in, — 
harpies, jinns, magic, devils, powerful enchant- 
ers, and the rest. 

When remembering with how much awe and 
wonder these great writers must have observed 
the visible sensible experience of death, the 
greatest of all man's material experiences, it is 



270 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

little to be wondered at that we find them all 
writing of it, and allowing their heroes to visit 
the Land of the Dead. And since the sharp 
changes wrought by death are in no way to be 
accounted for either by a man's experience or his 
reason, so here again speculation and imagina- 
tion lent their busy hands to picture some desir- 
able or hoped-for substitute for the hopeless 
facts. So were built up these pictures of the 
"Shades," the Elysian Fields, the Land of De- 
parted Spirits, the hell and purgatory and 
heaven of Dante, the Celestial City, with its 
glories and its melodious noise of music and run- 
ning waters, in which those who by death were 
so lost to us might be recovered and cherished 
and spoken with as of old. Not only the obser- 
vation of these writers, but how long an experi- 
ence and how much longing of the race lie in- 
woven with these symbols of hope and promise. 
So, too, the longing to escape from a dire fate 
— a thing noted in four of these great books — 
is but an interpretation of that deep self-con- 
sciousness to which man is humanly subject; 
that consciousness whereby he compares his 
actions with his ideals, his desires with his belief, 
his failures with his obligations; and so becomes 
"convicted of sin," as we say, and desirous of 
better living. Bunyan makes his hero voice and 



COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GREAT BOOKS 271 

interpret the whole great human longing in those 
few words of Christian uttered with what poign- 
ant sincerity, "What must I do to be saved?" 

As a further instance, the Enchanted Ground, 
and the Land of the Lotus-Eaters, Ulysses 
resisting the sirens, and Christian stopping his 
ears against the appealing and detaining voices 
of those he loves, are what else but so many ways 
of picturing that common weakness of the flesh 
and the temptation of it with which the spirits 
of all men at some time struggle? 

And if in the instances above we see our own 
weaknesses poetically and justly drawn, we see, 
too, that common sorrowful thing, the weakness 
of our companions and friends in the companions 
and friends of Ulysses, of Christian, and of Job, 
failing them in extremity. 

In the point powerfully taken by Homer and 
the author of the Book of Job — that their 
heroes are just men direful! y afflicted — we see 
two great minds strongly impressed by a com- 
mon and puzzling human fact which you and I, 
too, may have observed frequently, that the 
wicked are often seen to prosper and the good 
to suffer. 

One might cite many other examples. The 
longer one studies the great writers, the more one 
becomes aware of striking or subtle similarities. 



272 THE GREATEST BOOKS 

One thing is especially important for us to 
observe — that these similarities are not due, as 
we might at first suppose, to a mere likeness of 
thought or likeness of temperament in these men, 
a kind of fellowship which marked them all of 
one intellectual brotherhood. It is important 
that we should know that these likenesses are 
due rather to this, that these men all drew their 
knowledge from one source, from life itself — 
human existence itself. 

This brings us back to the reassuring realiza- 
tion that great art is but a form of life after all; — 
that it is touched, as life is, with our glories and 
our infirmities, acquainted with our grief; sharer 
of our knowledge, shot through with our joys 
and triumphs, — a thing fashioned of and for 
the spirits of us ("for these are spiritual utter- 
ances, and are spiritually discerned ") ; and there- 
fore not a privilege of the few but the possession 
of the many, not the exclusive gift of the kings 
and nobles of the earth, but the inestimable 
treasure, also, of the humble. 



THE END 



APPENDIX 



APPENDIX 

LIST OF BOOKS HELPFUL IN A STUDY OF 
GREAT BOOKS 

Each year sees some new volumes added to the 
already large number of commentaries on great 
books. The author of the present volume makes no 
claim that the lists given below are in any way com- 
plete. They contain the names of the editions, com- 
mentaries, essays, and such collateral reading as the 
author has found helpful in a study of the seven books 
treated of in the present volume. Many volumes are 
included in the lists which have only indirect bearing 
on the books studied, such as the histories of Spain 
and the histories of the East given in the lists for 
Don Quixote and for the Arabian Nights, many of the 
books chosen for the Arabian Nights list having been 
selected with a view to giving the student a broader 
knowledge of Eastern traditions and Oriental man- 
ners and customs in general. Where a book or essay 
seems to cast light on the nation or people to which 
the great book in question belongs, or on the charac- 
ter and times of its author, it has been included in 
the lists. From these it is supposed the discriminat- 
ing reader will choose such as would seem especially 
adapted to his own general plan of study. 

The lists given are graded. The simpler books and 
commentaries best suited to the casual student or 



276 APPENDIX 

to the one who has made no extended previous study 
of literature are in each case mentioned first. The 
books mentioned under II, III, or IV, are in general 
for those who wish to take up a more thorough and 
extended study. In some cases the books mentioned 
are published abroad. Though these may be ordered 
through our own book-dealers, it is not possible for 
the author to give accurately the prices of such books. 



GRADED LIST OF VOLUMES HELPFUL IN THE 
STUDY OF homer's ODYSSEY 

The * before the names of publishers in these lists indicates 
that the publishing house is in New York; the f indicates Boston. 



1. The Odyssey. Translated into Blank Verse by 
William Cullen Bryant. fHoughton Mifflin 
Company. This is perhaps the best-known and 
standard edition of the Odyssey in English. It has 

good notes. {Student's Edition.) $1.00 

2. The Odyssey. Translated into Verse by Alex- 
ander Pope. *Thomas Y. Crowell Company. 
This volume generally includes Pope's Essay on 
Homer. {Many other inexpensive editions.) 60 

3' The Odyssey of Homer. Done into English Prose 
by S. H. Butcher and A. Lang. *The Macmillan 
Company. This is a valuable translation, more 
readily understood than those in poetic meter. It is 
helpful to use this edition together with the Bryant 
or Pope translation ... 80 

4. The Odyssey. Translated by William Cowper. 
Everyman's Library. *E. P. Button & Co. A 
good inexpensive edition. Should be studied in con- 
nection with a good prose translation 35 



APPENDIX 277 

5. Ulysses, a Play, by Stephen Phillips. *John Lane. 
A beautiful and sympathetic rendering in drama 
form $1.00 

6. The Odyssey; an English Translation in Rhyth- 
mic Prose, by George H. Palmer. fHoughton 
Mifflin Company. A valuable translation 1.25 

7. Homer's Odyssey, by the Rev. W. Lucas Collins, 
M.A. J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. 

The story of the Odyssey briefly told in prose 50 

8. The Odyssey; a Commentary, by Denton J. 
Snider. The Sigma Publishing Company, St. 
Louis. A valuable commentary for beginners 1.50 

9. The Odyssey for Boys and Girls, by Alfred J. 
Church. *The Macmillan Company 1.70 

10. Tales of Troy and Greece, by Andrew Lang. 
*Longmans, Green & Co 1.50 

11. Queen of the Air, by John Ruskin. A Study of 
Minerva. Helpful to an understanding of the 
religion and symbolism of the Greeks. (To be had 
in many inexpensive editions.) 

12. Adventures of Ulysses, by Charles Lamb, with 
introduction by Andrew Lang. *Longmans, 
Green & Co 50 

13. Bulfinch's Age of Fable. *E. P. Duttoii & Co. 
A valuable reference book for mythology and legends 

of Greece and other lands 35 

14. Greek Heroes, by Charles Kingsley. fGinn & Co. 
{Student's Edition.) 30 

15. Gayley's Classic Myths. fGinn & Co. A valuable 

book 1.50 

16. Stories of the Old World, by Alfred J. Church. 
tGinn & Co 50 

17. Stories of Hellas, by Corinne Spickelmire. 
Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis 1.00 

{Nos. 8, 9, H, 16, and 17 are all excellent books 
written for children, but have interest as well for 
grown-ups.) 



APPENDIX 



n 



1. Homer, an Essay, by James Anthony Froude. 
Short Studies on Great Subjects. *Charles Scrib- 
ner's Sons $1.50 

2. Studies of the Greek Poets, by J. Addington Sy- 
monds. Two Volumes. *Harper & Brothers. 
These volumes include an Essay on the Women of 
Homer 3.00 

3. In Greece with the Classics, by William Amory 
Gardner. fLittle, Brown & Co. Original transla- 
tions covering a wide field of Greek literature, with 

a brief narrative of travel 1.00 

4. Charicles, Private Life of the Ancients, by 
Becker. *Longmans, Green & Co 1.00 

5. Greek Literature, by R. C. Jebb. *American 
Book Company 35 

6. Myths of Greece and Rome, by H. A. Guerber. 
*American Book Company 1.50 



in 

1. Old Greek Education, by J. P. Mahaffy. *Har- 
per & Brothers. An interesting account of methods 

of education in old Greece 1.50 

2. Greece (from the Coming of the Hellenes to a.d. 
14), by E. S. Shuckburgh. *G. P. Putnam's Sons. 

A good history for reference or serious study 1.50 

3. Old Greek Life, by J. P. Mahaffy. *American 
Book Company 35 

4. Chapman's Translation of the Odyssey. *E. P. 
Dutton & Co. One of the standard translations; 
hut its English being that of several centuries ago, 
it is used nowadays rather by the earnest than the 
casual student 70 

5. A History of Ancient Greek Literature, by Gil- 
bert Murray. *D. Appleton & Co 1.50 



APPENDIX 279 

6. Life of the Ancient Greeks, by Charles B. Gulick. 

*D. Appleton & Co $1.40 

7. Greek Literature, by R. C. Jebb. *American 
Book Company 35 

8. Short History of Greek Literature, by W. C. 
Wright. *American Book Company 1.00 

IV 

1. Wissenborn's Homeric Life. Adapted to the 
Needs of American Students. *American Book 
Company 1.00 

2. The World of Homer, by Andrew Lang. *Long- 
mans, Green & Co. For advanced study 1.25 

3. What the Greeks Have Done for Modern Civili- 
zation, by J. P. Mahaffy. *G. P. Putnam's Sons. 

A readable and helpful hook 1.50 

4. Essays on Delphi and Greek Literature, in 
"Shelburne Essays" (Second Series), by Paul 
Elmer More. *G. P. Putnam's Sons 1.25 

5. Greek Studies, by Walter Pater. *The Macmillan 
Company. These essays go deeply into the Greek 
myths and Greek ideals of beauty. For the casual 
student they are invaluable 1.25 

6. Art and Humanity in Homer, by W. C. Lawton. 
*Charles Scribner's Sons 1.50 

7. Homer; an Introduction to the IHad and Odyssey, 

by R. C. Jebb 1.50 

8. Some Aspects of the Greek Genius, by S. H. 
Butcher. *The Macmillan Company 1.00 

9. St. Basil on Greek Literature, by E. R. Maloney. 
*American Book Company 75 

10. Mycenean Troy, by Tolman and Scoggins. 
*American Book Company 1.00 

11. Essays on Greek Literature, by R. Y. Tyrrell. 
*The Macmillan Company 1.25 

12. A History of Classical Greek Literature, by J. P. 
MahaflFy. (With Appendix on Homer by Profes- 



280 APPENDIX 

sor Sayce.) *The Macmillan Company. Two 
volumes each $1.50 

13. Lectures on Greek Poetry, by J. W. Mackail. 
*Longmans, Green & Co » 3.00 

14. Handbook of Homeric Study, by Henry Browne. 
*Longmans, Green & Co 1.25 

15. Life in the Homeric Age, by Thomas Day Sey- 
mour. *The Macmillan Co.. , , 2.00 

COIVIMENTARIES, ESSAYS, ETC., USEFUL IN THE 
STUDY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY 



1. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Trans- 
lated by Rev. Henry F. Gary. *Thomas Y. 
Crowell Company. This is one of the standard 
translations. The above includes Rossetti 's transla- 
tion of Dante's "New Life.'' 60 

2. The Divine Comedy. Translated by Henry F. 
Gary. Everyman's Library. *E. P. Dutton & Co. .35 

3. The Divine Comedy. Translated by Henry W. 
Longfellow, f Houghton Mifflin Company. A 
good and standard edition. The copious notes in the 
Longfellow translation are valuable 1.00 

4. The Divine Comedy. Translated by Henry F. 
Gary. *A. L.Burt. This includes Life of Dante . . .50 

5. The Divine Comedy; a commentary, by Denton 
J. Snider. The Sigma Publishing Company, St. 
Louis. While not one of the accepted scholarly 
commentaries, yet a helpful one, in many ways well 
suited to beginners 1.50 

6. Essay on Dante, by James Russell Lowell. A 
helpful essay to be found in Vol. IV, Lowell's "Lit- 
erary Essays." jHoughton Mifflin Company . . . 1.50 

7. Dante Alighieri; His Life and Works, by Paget 
Toynbee. *The Macmillan Company. A read- 
able book by a well-known Dante vmter 1.50 



APPENDIX 281 

8. Essay on Dante, in "Historical Essaj^s and Re- 
views," by Mandell Creighton. *Longmans, 
Green & Co. A delightful and helpful essay $1.50 

9. (Other useful translations with valuable notes are 
those of Plumtre, and F. K. H. Hazelfoot. See also 
H. F. Toxers English Commentary on the Divina 
Commedia.) 

n 

1. The Divine Comedy. Translated by Charles 
Eliot Norton, f Houghton Mifflin Company. 
Three volumes, set 4.50 

2. The Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Edited 
with Translations and Notes by Arthur J. Butler. 
*The Macmillan Company. A prose translation 
useful to study in connection with one of the good 
verse translations. Three volumes, each 1.50 

S. The Spiritual Sense of Dante's Divina Comme- 
dia, by W. T. Harris. jHoughton Mifflin Com- 
pany. 1.25 

4. A Shadow of Dante, by Maria F. Rossetti. f Lit- 
tle, Brown & Co. An interesting hook, and one 
much used 1.25 

5. Comments on Passages in the Divine Comedy of 
Dante, by John Ruskin. Edited by G. P. Hun- 
tington. fHoughton Mifflin Company. Interest- 
ing and useful 1.25 

6. A Companion to Dante, by Scartazzini. Trans- 
lated by A. J. Butler. *The Macmillan Com- 
pany. A valuable hook for the student. It considers 
carefully Dante's life and character as well as his 
writings 1.50 

7. Dante, by Edmund G. Gardner. Temple Prim- 
ers. *E.P.Dutton&Co 50 

8. The Vita Nuova. Rossetti Translation. Temple 
Edition. *E. P. Dutton & Co 50 

9. The Banquet, by Dante Alighieri. Translated by 



282 APPENDIX 

Philip Wicksteed. Temple Edition. *E. P. 
Dutton & Co $ .50 

10. The Teachings of Dante, by Charles A. Dins- 
more. fHoughton Mifflin Company 1.50 

11. Aids to the Study of Dante, by Charles A. Dins- 
more. fHoughton Mifflin Company. A helpful 

book 1.50 

12. Dante and His Circle, by Dante G. Rossetti. 
jLittle, Brown & Co. A collection of poems hy 
Dante and his friends, translated by Rossetti. The 
volume also includes Rossetti' s translation of the 
''New Life." 1.50 

13. Essays on Dante, The Hero as Poet (in Carlyle's 
"Heroes and Hero- Worship ") . Temple Edition. 
*E. P. Dutton & Co. An interesting and well- 
known essay 30 

14. Essay on Poetry of Dante, in "Lectures on 
Poetry," by J. W. Mackail. *Longmans, Green 

& Co. A fine chapter 3.00 

15. Dante Studies and Researches, by Paget Toyn- 

bee. *E. P. Dutton & Co 3.50 



in 

1. Readings on the Inferno (2 vols.); Readings on 
the Purgatorio (two vols.); Readings on the 
Paradiso (two vols.). By W. W. Vernon. *The 
Macmillan Company. These volumes are exceed- 
ingly valuable for careful and detailed study of the 
" Divine Comedy. '* They have very full notes and 
a valuable running commentary by one of the 
most able of modern Dante students. Each 1.50 

2. Exiles of Eternity. Prisoners of Hope; In Patria. 
An exposition of Dante's "Divine Comedy" 
by John S. Carroll. *George Doran Company. 
These volumes are valuable and readable. They 
offer to the Dante student a careful and helpful 
commentary. Three volumes, each 2.00 



APPENDIX 283 

3. De Monarchia of Dante. Translated by A. 
Henry. fHoughton Mifflin Company $1.25 

4. The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius. 

*E. P. Dutton & Co 45 

5. Dante, by Edmund G. Gardner. *E. P. Dutton 
&Co 35 

6. Dante, the Wayfarer. By Christopher Hare. 
*Baker & Taylor Company 1.50 

7. Dante in English Literature from Chaucer to 
Cary. By Paget Toynbee. *The Macmillan 
Company 5.00 



BOOKS HELPFUL IN THE STUDY OF GOETHE's 
FAUST 



1. Goethe's Faust. Translated by Bayard Taylor. 
fHoughton Mifflin Company. A standard and 
excellent translation with good notes $2.00 

2. Goethe's Faust. Translated by Anne Swanwick. 
*The Macmillan Company. A good translation 

with notes. Two volumes, each 80 

3. Faust. Annotated by F. H. Hedge, D.D. Part 
n. Translated by Miss Swanwick. *Thomas Y. 
Crowell Company. A good edition, though with- 
out very full notes; useful if studied with good com- 
mentary 60 

4. Essay on Goethe, in "Heroes and Hero-Wor- 
ship," by Thomas Carlyle. {Many inexpensive 
editions.) 

5. Goethe's Faust; a Commentary by Denton J. 
Snider. The Sigma Publishing Company, St. 
Louis 1.50 

6. Life of Goethe, by G. H. Lewes. *E. P. Dutton 
&Co. A standard life of Goethe. It should he stud- 
ied in connection with some of the later biographies, .35 



284 APPENDIX 

7. Life of Goethe, by G. H. Lewes, with Notes. 
Bohn Library. *The Macmillan Company. This 
is a good standard edition unabridged, in two 
volumes, each $ .80 

8. Essays on Goethe, by Thomas Carlyle. (In any 
good edition of Carlyle' s works.) These essays are 
invaluable to the Goethe student. 

9. Faust; a prose translation by A. Hay ward. 
Bohn Library. *The Macmillan Company 1.25 

II 

1. Life of Goethe, by A. Hayward. J. B. Lippin- 
cott Company, Philadelphia. A readable and 
brief study of Goethe's life 1.00 

2. Essay on Goethe and His Influence. In "Liter- 
ary Essays," by Richard Holt Hutton. *The 
Macmillan Company. A review of Lewes' s "Life 
of Goethe." This is especially valuable if read in 
connection with that life 2.00 

3. Lecture on Goethe. In "Representative Men," 
by Ralph Waldo Emerson. fHoughton Mifflin 
Company 1.25 

4. Goethe's Autobiography. Translated by John 
Oxenford. *The Macmillan Company 80 

5. Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann. 
Translated from the German. *The Macmillan 
Company. Valuable and interesting for a study 

of Goethe's later life and opinions 1.00 

6. Essays on German literature. In "Critical and 
Miscellaneous Essays," by Thomas Carlyle. 
Helpful and inspiring, dealing with many phases 
of German literature. To be found in any good 
edition of Carlyle' s works. 

7. Goethe. An Essay in Biographical Studies by De 
Quincey. fHoughton Mifflin Company. An 
interesting and well-known essay 1.25 

8. Correspondence between Schiller and Goethe. 



APPENDIX 285 

Bohn Library. *The Macmillan Company. An 

interesting volume $ .80 

9. Travels in Italy, France, and Switzerland, by 
Goethe. Bohn Library. *The Macmillan 
Company 80 

10. Goethe and Schiller. Their Lives and Works, 
including a Commentary on Goethe's "Faust," 
by Hjalmar H. Boyesen. *Charles Scribner's 
Sons. Interesting and helpful essays 2.00 

11. Life and Times of Goethe, by Herman Grimm, 
flittle, Brown & Co. One of the good biographies 

of Goethe 1.25 



III 

1. Goethe's Faust. Both parts and Marlowe's " Dr. 
Faustus." Moreley's Universal Library. *E. P. 
Dutton & Co. Two volumes 70 

2. Chapters on Goethe and Faust, in "Hours with 
German Classics," by Frederic H. Hedge. fLittle, 
Brown & Co 1.25 

3. The Life of Goethe, by Albert Bielchowsky. 
*G. P. Putnam's Sons. Generally admitted to be 
the best life of Goethe. It is sympathetic and com- 
plete {in three volumes) 6.00 

4. The Story of the Renaissance, by William H. 
Hudson. *Cassell & Co. Of use mainly as giving 
an insight into some of the forces of the Renaissance y 
which were moving influences in Goethe's life .... 1.25 

5. Goethe, the Man and His Character, by Joseph 
McCabe. J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadel- 
phia. An interesting book recently published .... 4.00 

6. Three Philosophical Poets, by George Santayana. 
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 
Contains essays on Dante and Goethe, valuable in a 
comparative study 1.75 

7. New Studies in Literature, by Edward Dowden. 



286 APPENDIX 

Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., London. 
This volume includes five most interesting essays 
on Goethe $2.00 

8. Goethe and His Woman Friends, by Mary C. 
Crawford. fLittle, Brown & Co. An account of 
Goethe's friendship with women, together with many 
interesting illustrations 2.50 

9. Essays on Weimar and Goethe, in " Back- 
grounds of Literature," by Hamilton W. Mabie. 
*The Outlook Publishing Company. An interest- 
ing chapter 2.00 

10. Goethe's Complete Works. Bohn Library. *The 
Macmillan Company 

11. The Spirit of Goethe's Faust, by W. Coupland. 
London 

12. Goethe's Faust. The plan and purpose of the 
completed work. Vanderbilt University. Quar- 
terly, October, 1901. A valuable essay 

13. Faust, edited in two volumes by Calvin 
Thomas. Boston. This edition is valuable 
for its fine introduction and notes 



BOOKS USEFUL TO A STUDY OF THE ARABIAN 
NIGHTS 



1. The Arabian Nights. Translated by E. W. Lane. 
Edited by S. Lane Poole. *The Macmillan 
Company. The Lane translation is the best known 
and best adapted for general use. It is published 
in several good editions. The above edition is a very 
good one for general use, and contains an interest- 
ing introduction and valuable notes. In four vol- 
umes, each $1.00 

2. The Arabian Nights. Lane's Version. In Ariel 
Booklets. Six volumes, each 75 



APPENDIX 287 

3. The Arabian Nights, retold by Laurence Hous- 
man, with drawings, by Edmund Dulac. *George 
H. Doran Company, New York. A book for chil- 
dren. Delightful edition, of interest to grown-ups 

as well $2.00 

4. The Arabian Nights. *Thomas Y. Crowell Com- 
pany. A good selection of the "Arabian Nights" 
Stories, intended for general use 60 

5. The Arabian Nights. Selected and edited by 
Andrew Lang. *Longmans, Green & Co. A good 
popular selection 2.00 

6. Story of the Saracens, by Arthur Oilman. * G. P. 
Putnam's Sons. This book gives one a good idea of 
many Eastern customs and historical events, useful 

to the understanding of Eastern literature 1.00 

7. Lalla Rookh, by Thomas Moore. (In any com- 
plete edition of Moore's poetical works.) *Thomas 
Y. Crowell Company. The notes are valuable and 
interesting 75 

8. Bride of Abydos, Lara, The Corsair, by Lord 
Byron. {In any complete edition of Byron's poeti- 
cal works.) 

9. The Light of Asia, by Sir Edwin Arnold. {In any 
complete edition of his poetical works.) 

10. Sohrab and Rustum, by Matthew Arnold. {In 
any complete edition of Arnold's poetical works.) 
Riverside Literature Series. fHoughton Mifflin 
Company 25 

II 

1. Literary History of the Arabs, by Reynolds 
Nicholson. T. Fisher Unwin, London. An 
interesting book 

2. History of Arabic Literature, by Clement Huart. 

*D Appleton & Co. Interesting and instructive. 1.25 

3. Selections from the Koran, by Edward W. Lane. 
^ New edition, with introduction by Stanley Lane 



288 APPENDIX 

Poole. Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., 
London 

4. The FHght of a Tartar Tribe, by Thomas De 
Quineey. {In any good edition of De Quincey's 
works.) A famous essay; while it treats of a differ- 
ent people of the East, it is valuable and inspiring. 

5. Mohammed, in Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero- 
Worship." *Thomas Y. Crowell Company $ .35 

6. The Arabian Nights. Household Edition. *E. P. 
Button & Co 2.00 

7. Arabian Wisdom, by Wortabet. *E. P. Dutton 
&Co 40 

8. The Story of Persia, by S. G. W. Benjamin. 

*G. P. Putnam's Sons 1.00 



III 

1. Asiatic Studies, Religious and Social, by Sir 
Alfred Lyall. John Murray, London. Valuable 
and interesting 

2. Thibetan Tales, by Anton von Schiefner. Kegan 
Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., London. These 
tales are allied to many found in the *' Arabian 
Nights.'' 

3. Folk-Tales of Kasmir, by Rev. J. Hinton 
Knowles. Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., 
London 

4. Arabian Society in the Middle Ages, by Edward 
W. Lane. Edited by Stanley Lane Poole. Chatto 
& Windus, London. Valuable 

5. The Penetration of Arabia, by David Hogarth. 
*Frederick A. Stokes Company 2.00 

6. Rise and Fall of the Saracen Empire. In chapters 
50, 51, and 52 of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of 
the Roman Empire." {Many editions.) These 
chapters are valuable and interesting. 

7. Lady Burton's edition of Richard Burton's Ara- 
bian Nights. Walter Low & Sons, London 



APPENDIX 289 

8. Ferishtah's Fancies, by Robert Browning. {In 
complete edition of Browning's poetical works. 
Student's Edition.) fHoughton Mifflin Company. $2.00 

9. Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Translated by 
Edward FitzGerald. In many inexpensive edi- 
tions 

10. Translation of Arabian Nights, by Richard Bur- 
ton. In fourteen volumes 25.00 

11. Essay on Arabian Poetry, in "Lectures on Po- 
etry," by J. W. Mackail. *Longmans, Green & 
Company S.OO 

12. Tales of the Caliphs, by Claude Field. *E. P. 
Button & Co 1.00 

13. The Iliad of the East. A selection of legends 
drawn from the Sanskrit Poem "The Rama- 
yana," by Frederika Macdonald. *John Lane . . 2.00 

14. Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al Mad- 
inah and Meccah, by Sir R. F. Burton. Bohn 
Library. *The Macmillan Company 1.25 

15. The Koran. *Everyman's Library. *E. P. But- 
ton & Co 35 

16. Life of Mahomet, by Washington Irving. Bohn 
Library. *The Macmillan Company 1.00 

17. Tales of the Genii. Translated from the Persian 
by Sir Charles Morell. Bohn Library. *The 
Macmillan Company 1.00 

18. Essay on Persian Poetry by Emerson, in his 
" Letters and Social Aims. " fHoughton Mifflin 

Company. Centenary Edition 1.75 

Little Classic Edition 1.25 

19. The Story of Mediaeval India under Mohamme- 
dan Rule, by Stanley Lane Poole. *G. P. Put- 
nam's Sons 75 

20. The Story of Turkey, by Stanley Lane Poole. 

*G. P. Putnam's Sons 1.75 



290 APPENDIX 

BOOKS USEFUL TO A STUDY OF DON QUIXOTE 
I 

1. Don Quixote. Translated by Motteaux, with 
Loekhart's Life and Notes. Bohn Library. *The 
Macmillan Company. This is generally accepted 

as the standard translation. Two volumes each. $1.25 

2. Don Quixote. Illustrated by W. H. Robinson. 

*E. P. Dutton & Co. Two volumes 2.50 

8. Don Quixote. Unillustrated. Everyman's Li- 
brary. *E. P. Dutton & Co. Two volumes. . . 1.40 

4. Don Quixote. Translated by Robinson Smith. 

*E. P. Dutton & Co 3.50 

5. Don Quixote. Translated by Jarvis. *E. P. Dut- 
ton & Co. Two volumes 70 

6. Don Quixote. Translated by Ormsby, with in- 
troduction and notes. *Thomas Y. Crowell Com- 
pany. Valuable 1.25 

7. The Story of Don Quixote. Retold for Children 
by Judge Parry. Illustrated by Walter Crane. 
Blackie & Son 1.50 



II 

1. The Life of Miguel de Cervantes, by Albert F. 
Calvert. *John Lane 1.25 

2. Essay on Spanish Romance, in "Biographies and 
Miscellaneous Papers," by Washington Irving. 
Bohn Library. *The Macmillan Company 1.25 

3. The Alhambra, by Washington Irving. (Many 
editions.) 

4. A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada and 
Legends of the Conquest of Spain, by Washing- 
ton Irving. (Several editions.) 

5. The Bible in Spain, by George Borrow. *G. P. 
Putnam's Sons 2.00 



APPENDIX 291 

6. Gypsies in Spain, by George Borrow. *G. P. 
Putnam's Sons $2.00 

7. Gatherings from Spain. Everyman's Library. 

*E. P. Button & Co 35 

8. Chronicles of the Cid. *E. P. Dutton & Co 35 

9. The Conquest of Mexico, by W. H. Prescott. 
Everyman's Library. *E. P. Dutton & Co. Two 
volumes 1.40 

10. The Conquest of Peru. By W. H. Prescott. 
Everyman's Library. *E. P. Dutton & Co. Two 
volumes 1.40 

11. Romantic Legends of Spain. Translated by V. 

L. Bates. *Thomas Y. Crowell Company 1.50 

12. The Story of Spain, by Rev. E. E. and Susan 
Hale. *G. P. Putnam's Sons 1.75 

13. The Story of the Moors in Spain, by Stanley 
Lane Poole. *G. P. Putnam's Sons 1.75 

14. Story of the Christian Recovery of Spain (711 

to 1492) by H. E. Watts. *G. P. Putnam's Sons 1.75 

15. Romantic Legends of Spain, by Gustave A. 
Becquer. *Thomas Y. Crowell Company 1.50 

III 

1. Galatia, a Pastoral Romance, by Cervantes. 
Translated by G. W. J. Gyll. Bohn Library. 
*The Macmillan Company 1.50 

2. Exemplary Novels by Cervantes. Translated by 
Walter K. Kelly. Bohn Library. *The Mac- 
millan Company 1.50 

3. Amadis of Gaul and Palmerin of England, by 
Southey. London 

4. Morte d' Arthur, by Thomas Malory. *The 
Macmillan Company 1.75 

5. Essay on Chivalry, in Morte d' Arthur. (See 
above.) A valuable essay. 

6. Short Essay on Cervantes, in "My Literary Pas- 
sions," by W. D. Howells. *Harper & Brothers. 2.00 



292 APPENDIX 

7. Chapter on Cervantes, in " Great Writers." *The 
Macmillan Company $2.00 

8. History of Spanish I^iterature, by George Ticknor. 
fHoughton Mifflin Company. Three volumes .. , 10.00 



VOLUMES, ESSAYS, ETC., USEFUL IN THE STUDY 

OF pilgrim's progress 

I 

1. Pilgrim's Progress. Riverside Edition. fHough- 
ton Mifflin Company $ .60 

2. Pilgrim's Progress. Everyman's Library. *E. P. 
Button & Co .35 

3. Pilgrim's Progress. *Thomas Y. Crowell Com- 
pany , 60 

4. Pilgrim's Progress. Century Classics Edition. 
*The Century Company 1.20 

5. Pilgrim's Progress. *The Macmillan Company , . 1.00 

6. Pilgrim's Progress. Illustrated in color by Ham- 
mond. *The Macmillan Company 1.50 

7. Pilgrim's Progress. Illustrated in color by Pape. 

*E. P. Dutton & Co 1.75 

8. Pilgrim's Progress. Illustrated in black and 
white. *The Century Company 2.00 

{These are all excellent editions. The last three 
named are so illustrated as to he attractive not alone 
to grown-ups y but to children.) 

9. The Pilgrim's Progress, with Memoir of the 
Author, by Archdeacon Allen. *E. P. Dutton & 

Co 2.00 



II 

1. Bunyan, in "Essays in Little," by Andrew 
Lang. *Charles Scribner's Sons. Two volumes.. 2.00 

2. Bunyan, in Macaula-ys Essays. Many good edi- 



APPENDIX 293 

tions. See Macaulay's Essays in Everyman's 
Library. *E. P. Button & Co $ .70 

3. Bunyan. Essays by J. A. Froude. *The Mac- 
millan Company 40 

4. Bunyan, in "Shelburne Essays," by Paul Elmer 
More. *G. P. Putnam's Sons 1.00 

5. The Life of Bunyan, by J. A. Froude. *Harper 

& Brothers 1.00 

6. Cromwell, in "A Study of Greatness in Men," by 

J. N. Larned. fHoughton Mifflin Company 1.25 

7. Oliver Cromwell, by J. Morley. *The Century 
Company 1.00 

8. Oliver Cromwell, by T. Roosevelt. *Charles 
Scribner's Sons 1.50 

9. Cromwell and Bunyan by Southey. Murray and 
Company, London 1.50 

10. Oliver Cromwell, chapter in "Heroes and Hero 
Worship," by Thomas Carlyle. {Many editions.) 
*Thomas Y. Crowell Company 35 

11. John Bunyan: His Life, Times, and Work, by 
John Brown. fHoughton Mifflin Company. Very 
valuable and interesting 2.50 

12. The Life of Bunyan, by Edmund Venable. The 
Commonwealth and the Protectorate. Cambridge 
Press 

13. The Story of the Pilgrim Fathers. Ward & Don- 
ney, London 

Ill 

1. The Holy War, by J. Bunyan 

2. Life and Death of Mr. Badman, by J. Bunyan. 

3. Grace Abounding, by J. Bunyan 

{These three books may be had in several editions 
and at various prices.) 

4. Everyman, a Morality Play. *E. P. Dutton & 
Co. Valuable as example of early use of dramatic 
allegory in England 35 



294 APPENDIX 

5. History of the Reformation in Germany, by L. 

von Ranke. *E. P. Button & Co $2.00 



COMMENTARIES, ESSAYS, ETC., USEFUL IN THE 
STUDY OF THE BOOK OF JOB 

I 

1. The Book of Job, with notes. By R. G. Moulton. 
*The Macmillan Company. A valuable edition . . $1.50 

2. The Book of Job, edited by R. A. Watson. Ex- 
positor's Bible. *George H. Doran Company. 
A valuable commentary for use of students or for 
earnest readers; dear and inspiring 1.00 

3. Perfect Through Suffering, by W. C. E. Newbolt. 
*Longmans, Green & Co 1.00 

4. The Book of Job, with notes. By E. C. S. Gibson. 
*The Macmillan Company 1.50 

5. The Book of Job and the Problem of Human 
Suffering, by Buchanan Blake. *George H. 
Doran Company. An interesting book 1.25 



n 

1. Studies in the Book of Job, by F. N. Peloubet. 
*Charles Scribner's Sons 1.25 

2. Interpretations of the Book of Job, by Max L. 
Margolis. Published by Jewish Chautauqua 
Society, Philadelphia 1.25 

3. The Hebrew Literature of Wisdom in the " Light 
of To-day," by J. F. Genung. fHoughton Mifflin 
Company 1.25 

4. The Epic of the Inner Life, by J. F. Genung. 
tHoughton Mifflin Company 1.25 

5. The Book of Job, with notes, introduction, etc., 

by A. B. Davidson. *G. P. Putnam's Sons. . . . 1.00 

6. The Messages of the Poets {chapters on Book of 



APPENDIX 295 

Joh)y by Nathaniel Schmidt. *Charles Scribner's 

Sons $1.50 

World Literature, by R. G. Moulton. *The Mac- 
millan Company. A valuable popular hook dealing 
with the general trend of literature as developed 
by mankind 2.00 



III 

1. Indications of the Book of Job, by E. B. Latch. 

J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia 1.00 

2. The Sceptics of the Old Testament, by Emil J. 
Dillon. Isbister & Co., London 2.00 

3. Lectures on the Book of Job, delivered in West- 
minster Abbey, by George G. Bradley. Claren- 
don Press, Oxford, England 2.50 

4. Job. Exposition by G. Rawlinson. Kegan Paul, 
Trench, Trubner & Co., London 2.00 

5. Commentary on Book of Job, by G. H. A. von 
Ewald. Translated by J. F. Smith. Williams 
& Norgate, London. This has long been one of the 

best standard commentaries 2.00 

6. The Heresy of Job, by Francis Coutts. John 
Lane, London 

7. Literary Study of The Bible, by Richard G. 
Moulton. fD. C. Heath & Co 2.00 

8. Blake's Vision of the Book of Job, by Joseph H. 
Wicksteed. *E. P. Dutton & Co 2.00 

9. The Heresy of Job; a study of the Argument, 
illustrated by Blake. *John Lane 2.00 

10. The Great Epic of Israel, by Amos Kidder Fiske. 
*Sturgis & Walton 1.50 

11. Commentary on the Book of Job, by George A. 
Barton. *The Macmillan Company 90 

12. The Bible for Learners, by Ort and Hooykass. 
Translated by J. H. Wicksteed. London. Two 
volumes 



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